The Tamesis
Before today’s culture’s craze for toe shoes, we had the Nike Rift, a cloven shoe. Even though it’s been around for a little over 25 years, its two toes still have a firm grip on the neck of fashion. Last night, Kim Kardashian debuted the NikeSkims Rift, an updated version of Skims’ first split-toe silhouette with Nike.
Kardashian chose to wear her outfit on two recent outings. First, pair black shoes with a Balenciaga leather bandeau and bomber jacket, Skims leggings and nylon bottoms at The Commons in Calabasas. Later, she styled a satin pair with a stylish Phoebe Philo jacket and Skims leggings. This isn’t the first time Kardashian has shown a preference for split toes: while attending Maison Margiela’s spring 2024 haute couture show in Paris, she wore a pair of the brand’s famous black velvet split-toe pumps, a collaboration between Margiela and Christian Louboutin.
The Nike Air Rift was officially launched in 1996 (just a few years after Margiela Tabi). Designed by avid ultra-distance runner Kip Buck, the original shoe was named after Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, where the country is split in two, and its functional design was inspired by the country’s barefoot distance runners. The split-toe shape is an important step forward in contemporary nature-focused athletic footwear—aka barefoot, five-toed styles like the Vibram, which became a fashion phenomenon last year—and is often paired not with Lycra and Alo suits, but, conversely, with more subversive, feminine ways of dressing. One of the most outlandish releases in Nike’s archives, the Air Rift comes at a time when Nike is continuing to experiment, expanding the reach of its footwear beyond traditional sports and athlete realms to create sneakers that span lifestyles.
It has been a coveted lifestyle sneaker for years, beloved by Japan’s Harajuku scene and featured in a cult following fruit Magazine. (It has natural ties to Japan: the split-toe design dates back to the late Heian period and around 794.) It’s still rarely seen on resale sites and has become the holy grail for many sneakerheads. The Nike Air Rift was first officially re-released in 2015, but it has become increasingly common at retail over the past few years. The sole is slimmer and less chunky than its predecessor, with last year’s changes including textured suede, double buckle straps and silky pink laces.
