Which Maison Margiela Tabi silhouette should I buy first?

The ballet flat or the mary-jane in black is the safest first pair, both work across formal and casual contexts and the silhouette reads softest. The ankle boot is the second purchase if you want a louder piece. Browse the live cross-retailer assortment at [the products catalogue](/products?brand=maison-margiela&category=shoes) for current options.

Do Tabi shoes run true-to-size?

The ballet flat and mary-jane run roughly a half-size large through the toe box; the ankle boot and loafer run closer to true-to-size. Sizing depends on the length of your second toe relative to your big toe. The [women's shoes catalogue](/womenswear/category/shoes) cross-references against other Italian-last designer shoes.

Where does Tabi stock land first in North America?

SSENSE Montreal carries the deepest North American Tabi assortment and lands new releases within days of the European launch. Net-a-Porter (women's) and MR PORTER (men's) anchor the US-side brand-adjacent retailers; the brand-direct e-commerce lands the limited-run collaboration pieces first.

Are Tabi shoes worth it?

For a shoe that holds visual currency and resale value the way Tabi has held across thirty-six years, the price-per-wear math works out the way it does in [our case for investing in cashmere](/editorial/the-case-for-investing-in-cashmere). For a one-off cult purchase, the resale market gives an exit path that most designer footwear does not.

Brand Spotlight

Where to buy Maison Margiela Tabi shoes in North America

The split-toe Tabi has gone from cult object to mainstream sightline. Here is where stock actually lands across our retailers, and how to choose between the silhouettes.

By Fetchi Editorial, Footwear desk

May 25, 2026

7 min read

The Maison Margiela Tabi is the rare designer shoe that has spent more than three decades as a polarizing piece and shows no sign of softening into the mainstream. Martin Margiela introduced the split-toe silhouette in his 1989 debut runway, the toe cleft echoing the 15th-century Japanese tabi sock, and the shape has shipped in some form in every collection since. The current cycle has pushed Tabi visibility past anything the house has previously experienced: street-style photographers credit it with the 2022 to 2026 rise in cult-shoe interest, and resale data from the secondhand platforms confirms that Tabi ballet flats and mary-janes outpaced every other designer shoe in lookup volume across 2024 and 2025. The shape has moved from cult object to mainstream sightline without becoming any less recognizable.

Close-up of a single black leather Tabi ballet flat on a worn parquet floor, split toe and stitched seam clearly visible, soft window light from the left — The split toe is the silhouette. Every Tabi in the line, ballet flat to ankle boot to mary-jane, runs through the same toe cleft Margiela debuted in 1989.

This piece is the working guide to actually finding a pair in North America in 2026: which retailers carry which silhouettes, where stock tends to land first, and the sizing notes worth knowing before you commit to a $1,000+ shoe with a non-trivial break-in. The thinking pairs with the brand-direct logic in our Lemaire piece and the Toteme guide, but the Tabi market behaves differently because of the cult-object dynamic.