Free the Toe!
What is this Substack all about? How did we get here?
As a rather simple child, I looked at my right foot one evening and exerted all the mental focus in my body to extend my pinky toe from its siblings. I didn’t know the word ‘splay’ and it would take another 15 years to realize that my squished toes were shaped from wearing too-small shoes as a child. Looking back down at my foot, I used a wood ruler to maneuver my pinky toe back and forth away from its siblings, forcing my body to learn and memorize this shape and movement. I was able to train my toe to stretch so far away that it can perform a cute little wave hello from below. 👋
Toes are so powerful. They are balancing agents, actors of force, they push, they pull, and can pick up small rocks. In 2020, new Brooklyn shoe brand ILYSM (I Love You So Much) peddled split toe tabi sneakers: soft and stretchy knitted ankle-sock-like sneakers with a low, flat rubber sole and a signature split toe construction. Its appearance on the market with its fun colorways and reflective styles felt like a giggle toward Belgian fashion house Maison Martin Margiela’s high-end obsession with tabi-style shoes. The Japanese split toe style goes back at least to the 13th century as a sock to be worn with formal thonged sandals [Source] and Margiela brought it to the Western eye in his 1988 debut runway show [fun SSENSE article]. It immediately caught the eye of artsy fashionista darlings and in 2020, I owned a pair of ILYSM reflective knit tabi sneakers for just $99.
Freeing the big toe is an underrated sensory experience. Until now, my only experience with big toe separation was as a devout Old Navy-$1-flip-flop-summer-sandal-wearer throughout my childhood. Now, with a rubberized big toe completely separated from its siblings, Brooklyn’s concrete jungle felt graspable like sand. I relished this tabi shoe and supported my new fascination with as many tabi socks as I could find, for cheap. The socks made their way into my daily rotation regardless of shoe until they were exclusively my sock of choice.
Somewhere along the way, after more than 2 decades of admonishing the sport, I became a runner. As I progressed through a couch-to-half-marathon program in winter/spring 2023 and went up a couple shoe sizes, I also learned that my toes absolutely abhorred wearing anything other than my thinnest tabi sock. In any other sock I suffered significant blistering between my toes and my feet would overheat in anything thicker. I loved my worn-thin left/right agnostic Amazon tabi socks, but they felt incredibly cheap and were made of cotton, so they aged quickly and retained moisture and heat during longer runs. There must be something better.
I’m on a quest to develop the best socks my feet have ever known: tabi socks for performance wear. As it turns out, it’s way harder than I expected (naturally). I started this journey about a year ago and am currently working on a 2nd round of samples, and have learned a lot about socks. Join me on this research trip as I figure out how to make the best sock ever. 🧦
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