I know they're not meant to be funny looking, but I keep thinking these are the kinds of shoes you send your kid out in when you want him to get beat up at the playground:
They're by a Japanese company called Globe, and the advertised merits of having separated-toe shoes is improved circulation, hygiene (I guess isolated toes develop no "funk"), and a better sense of grabbing the ground with your feet for those being physically rehabilitated.
One merit they forgot to add is that it will make your boy tougher or at the very least, accustomed to fighting off a daily onslaught of attackers at the monkey bars. Yeah, if my kid had to wear these I'd draw attention away from his feet by giving him one of those beanies with the propeller on top.
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To those who think they look odd: I'd think readers of a design magazine should know that new designs often look odd until people get used to it. I think they look much more normal than "regular" shoes. The separate toes are pure function after all. Whats strange is the idea to pack them all together. We prefer gloves to mittens, same thing will happen with shoes.
Why do you assume only boys would wear these?
http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/index.htm
The thing that makes these ones so weird looking is the fact (toes aside) that they are half a normal shoe, half not.