Do you know five-toed pantyhose? 😛 It was invented in Japan a few years ago.
It’s very convenient when you wear split toe sandals. And good when you wear shoes on a hot day, too.
Don’t you think why I wear them on my bare feet? Because Japanese summer is very muggy.
To wear shoes was not our custom until the beginning of Meiji era. Before that, we wore geta, zori, waraji, and so on. They are not European-style but all open-style footwear.
To wear closed-style footwear at summer time in Japan is crazy. But about a hundred years we have continued these acts of madness. So we need something to guard our feet from Japanese sadistic summer weather. 😉
Now when we wear shoes on summer, we don’t do them on our bare feet. But Japanese who have been using open-style footwear for a long time can not bear their toes without full control. We still have our ancestors in our inside. 🙂
Then, five-toed pantyhose has appeared. XD
Edit(2011.12.29):
A few people visit here by googling and they seem to look for a shipping store on the internet. So I added this edit.
Five-toed pantyhose was developed by REVEALLE (レヴアル) which is a local small company in Japan. But they are shipping their product here. Revealle (@Rakuten) or Revealle (@Amazon)
You can find easily some Five-toed pantyhose if you search inside the store by keywords such as five, toe, etc.