The Croc Conundrum
Slate author Meghan O’Rourke takes an inside look at the Croc fad – how it got here and why it has lasted.
“In just a few years, the exquisitely ugly shoes known as “Crocs” have spread around the world like a Paris Hilton sex tape, giving rise to an epidemic of croc babies and their more egregious counterparts, croc parents. The shoe looks adorable on sun-kissed toddlers, but, alas, the fad did not stop there.”
Crocs are doing so well that they are poised to launch a new product line this fall, despite the fact, as O’Rourke says, “Crocs are heinous in appearance.” Even the salesman who sold her the shoe revealed that he would not wear them. “Nah, they’re too ugly. The flip-flop, maybe—but these go too far for me.”
While O’Rourke did find the Croc very comfortable, she says, “the ratio of shame to comfort was extreme.” Which creates the “Croc conundrum” – a shoe that “makes you look absurd, but they can change your life” with how great they feel. Crocs themselves ran ads in Rolling Stone proclaiming “Ugly can be beautiful.”
The company has taken off, earning $200 million in 2006, but there has been some backlash. At Ihatecrocs.com, people try to destroy Crocs in a variety of ways: fireworks, scissors, and lighter fluid. Some hospitals have banned the shoe because of the holes in the toe, saying it doesn’t protect against infection. And podiatrists are getting patients with strained arches from Croc overuse.
In preparation for potential fallout, the Crocs company has made some licensing deals and plans to launch new clothing and shoe lines with higher price tags ($70-100) and different styles. Only time will tell if Crocs can survive.
But for now, everyone is loving them, even celebrities:
Ben Affleck in Crocs!
Jared Leto in Crocs!
Mario Batali in Crocs!
Heather Locklear in Crocs!
President Bush, Nicole Appleton, Faith Hill, and Perez Hilton in Crocs!
Source: Slate
Photos: PopSugar, Gone Hollywood, Tampa Bay Times, Go Fug Yourself, Big Head DC
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Not everyone is loving them. They’re fugly. They’re fugnastically fugly. They’re fat chicks wearing spandex fugly. And worst of all – they’re not even bio-degradable so they’re just adding to everyone’s carbon footprint. No pun intended.
Fugliness at it’s most fugly.
And did I mention fugly? FUGLY.
LOL Trish!!! I think you forgot to mention that they’re fugly.
THEY’RE SO FREAKING FUGLY, it takes fugly to a whole new level. Why ANYONE would wear these is way beyone me.
No self-respecting human being, with the least possible esthetic sense would ever allow these “things” to touch their feet! I’d rather go barefoot in the Sahara desert during a summer day than wear these horrid things. (Plus consider the fact that Crocs people are a bunch of Environmentalist-nazi-cum-Tree-Hugger nuts…)