Between the prequel comic book Star Trek: Countdown and the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray for 2009’s Star Trek reboot, we learned a lot of great backstory. One tidbit was the explanation for the Romulans (Nero and his crew) wearing cloven-toed boots. Prior to encountering the USS Kelvin, which resulted in the early birth of James T. Kirk in space instead of Iowa and the death of his father, Nero and crew were imprisoned by a band of Klingons. Presumably as part of their escape they took their captors’ clothes, hence the cloven-toed boots–the familiar footwear of Klingons since Star Trek: The Motion Picture through Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond.
Nero style “neoninja” Tabi boots and pants from Star Trek 2009.
When costumer Michael Kaplan was sourcing his Romulan (formerly Klingon) garb for the film, he ended up using some unique and stylish creations from the folks behind Ayyawear and Verillas, and for a brief time after the film you could buy the same creations from their original source at Romwear.com. Romwear.com no longer exists, but you can still buy the cloven-toed Tabi boots from Ayyawear and Verillas in several different styles.
