The Nike tabi sock is not just a sock. It's a symbol of the times in a way that only the world's most ubiquitous plain white sport sock could. The Nike tabi sock instead reflects a truism at the heart of contemporary footwear: tabi shoes are the new normal.

That alone isn't a radical notion given that Maison Margiela's signature shoe recently tiptoed its way to mainstream fame following landmark moments like the "tabi swiper" debacle. The once divisive split-toe shoe is now so ordinary that you can't swing a pair of destroyed sneakers in downtown New York without hitting someone wearing tabi boots or derbies or sandals or Mary Janes.

Of the flood of imitators that've cashed in on tabi fever, Nike's Air Rift stands tall as a shoe that was as ahead of the times as Margiela's tabi. Born in the wild '90s, when sneaker culture was basically the wild west and "innovation" meant shapes no one had ever seen before, the Air Rift was reborn over the past couple years with Nike rolling out the shoe in a handful of odd makes befitting its sudden timeliness .

So, on one hand, Nike's tabi socks could just be a response to the Air Rift's enduring popularity. A tabi sock for a tabi shoe. Fair enough. But on the other, you can see them as a sign of something bigger.

For starters, having worn a few tabi shoes including the Air Rift, I can say that they don't even need tabi socks. Air Rifts, especially, are fine with ordinary socks. Plus, Nike has already made low-cut tabi socks for a minute (and it did make tabi socks specifically for the Rift in the '90s). Why do a high-top version at all?

The tabi sock is less answering a need than proving a point. Who wants tabi socks? People who wear tabi shoes, of course. And if there are enough of them, it justifies tabi-ifying the Nike sock, the archetypal "everyone" sock. This is telling. A sportswear giant only goes to the effort of tabi-ifying the world's most normal sock when tabis are the new norm.

However, Nike's tabi socks aren't quite ready for mass consumption as they're currently only available at a handful of sneaker stores. But mainstreaming the tabi took some time, so why not the same fate for the tabi sock?

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