With cold weather just around the corner many of us are thinking about our winter footwear. Prof Margo Barton with student Oliver Murphy looks at the history of a controversial boot. Nothing new under the sun? It seems fitting in a fashion page about boots that we also have a quick look into one of fashion’s most iconic footwear items — the Martin Margiela’s Tabi boot. Otago Polytechnic year one fashion student Oliver Murphy’s essay compared the Tabi boots with their historical inspiration, the Japanese jika-tabi. Titled  Margiela’s Tabi: Reinterpretation, Transformation, or Cultural Appropriation?  Murphy asked in the essay "what are those freaky looking boots with a split toe that people argue about online?". Murphy was referring to the original fashion interpretation of the Japanese staple, the Margiela tabi boot which was first seen as a fashion item in Margiela’s debut show in 1988.…