Before culture’s current torrid love affair with the five-finger shoe, we had the cloven-hoofed Nike Rift. Though it’s been around for just over 25 years now, its two toes remain firmly on fashion’s neck. Last night, Kim Kardashian gave a first look at the NikeSkims Rift shoe—an updated take on the split-toe silhouette and the first footwear from Skims and Nike’s partnership.
Kardashian chose to wear hers for two recent pap walks. First, at The Commons in Calabasas, pairing the black shoes with a Balenciaga leather bandeau and bomber jacket, Skims leggings, and nylon bottoms. Later, she styled a satin pair with a sleek Phoebe Philo jacket and Skims leggings. It’s not the first time Kardashian has shown a penchant for the split-toe: when attending the Maison Margiela haute couture spring 2024 show in Paris, she wore a black velvet pair of the brand’s own famed split-toe heels, a collaboration between Margiela and Christian Louboutin.
The Nike Air Rift officially launched in 1996 (just a few years after the Margiela tabi). The original shoe, designed by avid ultra-distance runner Kip Buck, took its name from Kenya’s Great Rift Valley (where the country splits in two), its functional design inspired by the country’s barefoot long-distance runners. The tabi shoe shape was a significant step toward the contemporary focus on natural-motion footwear—AKA the barefoot, five-toe styles like Vibram, which became something of a fashion phenomenon last year—often paired not with lycra and Alo sets but, contrastingly, more subversive, feminine ways of dressing. One of the wackier editions to the Nike archive, the Air Rift launched at a time when Nike was getting more experimental, extending the reach of its shoes beyond traditional realms of sport and athletes to create cross-lifestyle sneakers.
For years, it was a coveted lifestyle sneaker, beloved in Japan’s Harajuku circles and appearing in the cult FRUiTs magazine. (Japan has a natural kinship: the split-toe design can be traced back to the late Heian period and around 794.) It remained a rare find on resale sites and became a grail for many sneakerheads. The Nike Air Rift had its first official re-release in 2015, but it’s become more ubiquitous in retail in just the last few years. Slimmer and with a less chunky sole than its predecessors, variations just in the last year have included textured suede, double-buckle straps, and silky pink tie-up ribbons.
It’s just as clockable on the streets now, too. Jennifer Lawrence and Sarah Jessica Parker stand on four toes for the Nike Air Rift, having been papped in the styles more than once. Flat, low-profile shoes, and freakier hybrid styles like the sneakerina have been experiencing their own popularity spike—the tabi sneaker, one might say, is an unexpected approach to the Mary Jane, with its singular, sleek strap and minimalist outer shape. It has a toe in every trend pot.
Today, there’s a wealth of split-toe shoe heroes: Tory Burch’s slitted heels, Kiko Kostadinov’s tabi Asics, and Sandy Liang’s pearl-studded cloven boots. In its new life as a Kardashian, the Nike Rift has hit a more sleek, luxe rhythm.
I’ve only ever bought them on resale: my own first pair of Rifts cost $25 on Italian eBay, in cherry red with a bulbous white sole. I always liked that they looked a bit monstrous and oddball, and because they don’t naturally “go” with anything, they challenged me with how I dressed them up. And sure, they were an early gateway to my Margiela tabi obsession, and now my toes at rest will split themselves, but I think I’ll forgo the Kardashified tabi in favor of its freakier ancestors when they pop up on my algorithm. My tip? Treat yourself to the toe socks too—that neoprene is unforgiving…
