#HTE

An Honest Product Review of Those “Wrapping” Sneakers

I don’t see a lot of innovation in the footwear design space, outside of shoes targeted at athletes that boast some interesting-looking, but probably cockamamie, performance-boosting feature. So I was excited when Vibram came out with their Furoshikis, which borrowed the idea of a Japanese wrapping cloth (Westerners: Think of the bundle on the end of a cartoon hobo’s stick) and applied it to footwear.

It seemed intriguing, an outsole bonded to flexible wings that you wrap comfortably around your feet. I’d meant to pick up a pair, particularly for long airplane flights, where my feet swell and I ocould use shoes that can be made looser. But now, while researching another story, I came across one of those rare and perfect product reviews, where an objective party demonstrates the product and answers every single question I had:

Maybe this is why true footwear design innovation is so difficult. It seems that aside from some minor gripes I’ve got with ingress and egress, we’ve largely perfected the form factor, no?

http://www.core77.com/posts/55379/An-Honest-Product-Review-of-Those-Wrapping-Sneakers