Red Tabi Shoes

Belgian designer Martin Margiela (b. 1957) — whose life, career, and designs for handbags, clothing and shoes have become cult-collector obsessions — pushed those who attended his shows outside their comfort zones. In the years following the 1988 debut of Maison Martin Margiela, he toyed with creative and aesthetic paradoxes that persist in fashion today.

Consider the Spring/Summer 2001 shirt patchworked from vintage clothing labels, or his famous corset dresses made from tailoring dummies, from his Fall/Winter 1997 line. Or his oversize collection for Fall/Winter 2000. In 1992, Margiela told Dépêche Mode magazine, “My clothes appeal to women of a certain mindset rather than of a specific age or physique.”

Born in Genk, Belgium, in 1957, Margiela knew he wanted to be a fashion designer after catching glimpses of Parisian fashion on TV as a child. Although his parents discouraged this career choice as an oddly funny aspiration, Margiela enrolled in the fashion program of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. There, he befriended and graduated a year ahead of the Antwerp Six — the acclaimed group of Belgian fashion designers comprising Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee, Dirk Bikkembergs and Dirk Van Saene.

Like many of his contemporaries in the 1980s, Margiela understood Paris fashion but felt a deep resonance with the deconstructed beauty espoused by Japanese designers Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, of Comme des Garçons. Margiela’s fascination with Japan influenced many of his earliest collections and designs, from a dress pieced together from broken plates to his iconic Tabi boots, inspired by the split-toe Japanese worker’s shoe, which dates back to the 15th century.

Margiela decided to launch his own line while working for renowned Paris designer Jean Paul Gaultier. With Belgian designer Jenny Meirens, Margiela established Maison Martin Margiela in the French capital in 1988. 

Margiela’s debut show was nothing short of spectacular. Set in a packed Café de la Gare in the still-seedy Marais district, it was also scandalous to the Parisian fashion set of the time. The designer tore up the conventions of contemporary couture presentations, most notably having his models, plucked from the streets and wearing ink-blotted Tabis, wend their way through the crowd.

The show redefined the concept of the runway in a way that would later inspire such designers as Alexander McQueen and Demna Gvasalia.

While the notoriously private designer retired from fashion in 2009, for many Maison Martin Margiela collectors, his pieces capture the irreverence of the postwar, post-punk late 1980s and ’90s. Katy Rodriguez, cofounder of the cult vintage fashion shop Resurrection, is among those who felt a connection to Margiela’s clothing in the subliminal challenges it posed to the time’s beauty norms.

“Growing up in San Francisco and coming out of the end of punk rock, not wanting to be objectified, not wanting to be seen as a sexual object, not wanting your value to be just because you’re pretty — all those clothes played into all of that,” she says. “It really was a reflection of the kind of world the young people I knew at the time wanted to live in.”

John Galliano was named creative director at the house in 2014 and it rebranded as Maison Margiela in 2015.

Find vintage Maison Martin Margiela boots, evening dresses, jackets and more on 1stDibs.

Whether they’re Hermès sandals, black Jimmy Choo boots, ivory-leather-and-pink-daisy heels by sublime shoemaker Manolo Blahnik or Christian Louboutin platform pumps, you can find your next pair of legendary luxury vintage and designer shoes today on 1stDibs.

Shoes offered by the likes of Versace, Chanel, Charles Jourdan or Prada are integral to completing your carefully orchestrated street-style or evening ensemble these days, but footwear wasn’t always the big deal it is for your average Adidas enthusiast.

The decorative floor-length gowns that upper-class women of the 18th century wore meant that their shoes, then likely featuring high curved heels finished with woven or embroidered silks — a sharp contrast to the heavy, rudimentary form of the era’s footwear for men — were partially or entirely obscured by the base of their ornate dresses. What good is fashion if it’s tucked away?

Our modern age’s legions of sneakerheads might have trouble tracking down a pair of black-and-gold vintage Jordans but can at least fill their dream closets with original Adidas Gazelles or 1980s New Balances if they put the time in, while 1990s-era Prada pumps or a good pair of mid-20th-century jewel-tone heels in satin or silk haven’t lost their allure with today’s nostalgic fashionistas.

A pair of shoes can commemorate an achievement, mark an important trip overseas and is sometimes a rich manifestation of a hard-won physical feat. On 1stDibs, find Chanel flats or two-tone heels, Christian Dior pumps, vintage Margiela Tabi boots and many more designer shoes today.