Nearly a decade after their first collaboration, Kiko Kostadinov and ASICS are revisiting their radical beginnings with a distinctly architectural twist: split-toed running shoes. What began with unconventional elderly runners on the runway has evolved into a fully realized exploration of form, function, and foot.
The ILARGI F drops first at Kostadinov’s London store on February 19, before arriving online on February 23, accompanied by three short films from American artist Ryan Trecartin. A thin-soled runner with a technical knit upper, it is both sleek and audacious, a toe-hugging silhouette that nods to ASICS’ 1950s tabi marathon shoes while looking entirely contemporary.
This release lands at a moment when tabi-inspired footwear has become culturally legible. Maison Margiela’s Tabi boots have long circulated in high fashion, Nike and Skims introduced hoof-like sneakers, and the rise of toe shoes has normalized footwear that literally splits your foot in two. Yet Kostadinov’s approach feels archival as much as it does avant-garde: ASICS were experimenting with tabi forms decades before anyone else, and the ILARGI F channels that legacy with sharp precision.
For Kostadinov, it’s less about trend-chasing than excavation, bringing forward an original silhouette and reinterpreting it for the streets, the runway, and whatever eccentric corner of the sneaker-verse you inhabit.
