WARNING! REALLY SUBJECTIVE DESIGN REVIEW BY SOMEONE WITH NO OFFICIAL DESIGN REVIEW BACKGROUND AHEAD!
I wanted to like these new FJ's (based on early pictures), but once I saw them live, my curiosity ended abruptly. These shoes just don't have any real "flow" to them. The toe design is kind of interesting, but the Star Trek-invoking design on the sides is just a mess. The patterns/textures/shapes that make up the sides just don't go with the bold look of the toe box (which also doesn't seem to jive with the treatment of the sides of the soles). A classic case of overdoing it just to try to introduce some pizzaz to something othwise boring -- like all of the strakes and cladding on a mid-90's Pontiac.
To make matters worse, the black-and-silver [on the white shoes I saw] lace loops (which, by themselves, make matters worse) SPARKLE. So, not only do these busy-and-square things not go with the busy-and-swoopy side and sole details on the shoe, but the silver in them is shimmery. That's got to be a distraction (as well), doesn't it? And the fact that there are only two pairs of these loops placed low on the upper (or whatever it's called) -- instead of all the way up the shoe -- looks wrong to me, too.
I'd submit that the black shoe is the best looking one of the bunch -- mainly because all of the ticky-tacky details are hidden by the monochromatic scheme.
This shoe looks like it was designed by committee -- and everyone got his pet desgin aspect in. Maybe if the shoes had normal lace eyelets, or a straight sole profile, or fewer parts making up the side designs, the shoe could be pretty sweet. Right now, the shoe is going in too many directions for my tastes.
/< / /2 /<
PS -- What was the question again? lol