Crocs Are Actually About to Be Fashionable
They may be both ridiculed and ridiculous looking, but as improbable as it is to imagine, Crocs are making a comeback.
Blame it on 2000s nostalgia, blame it on athleisure, but it’s only a matter of time before an Urban Outfitters x Crocs collaboration will trick somebody you know into spending $65 on a pair of plastic slip-on clogs.
Or, dare we say it, they might even trick you.
Sorry, but the end of your Croc-less existence is fast approaching.
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Over the past couple of years, ugly shoes have been having a fashion moment.
Shoes that were universally regarded as fashion faux pas in the mid-2000s like Birkenstocks, Tevas, and slide sandals are everywhere now – and only seem to be growing in popularity as athleisure continues its reign over our wallets.
“We’re beyond the tip of the iceberg,” said stylist Elizabeth Saltzman to W Magazine about the rise of ugly summer shoes. “Comfort and practicality are very important.”
And even though Crocs haven’t quite become cool, they’re not as far away from a return to glory as you might think.
In 2014, after three years of focusing on attempting to sell more upscale, fashionable shoes, the company decided it was time to make a return to basics.
They wanted to make the name Crocs synonymous with clogs again – and the plan worked.
By 2015, Crocs reported it had sold over 30 million pairs of their ugly duckling shoes. Granted, most of the shoes were sold to foreign countries where Crocs weren’t quite as infamously fug, but still – people were buying them.
One year later, bedazzled Crocs were waltzing down the frickin’ runway and being sold at fancier mall stories like Nordstrom for hundreds of dollars.
And by the end of 2016, Kylie Jenner was yelling “this is lit” on Snapchat after receiving four different pairs of Crocs for Christmas.
Whether or not Kylie has anything to do with it, in a new report by retail resale website threadUP, Crocs are flying off the shelves faster than ANY other mall brand they sell.
“We were surprised to see Crocs so high on list,” Karen Clark, threadUP’s head of marketing communications, told Yahoo Style. “For brands with that high a sell-through rate, it’a almost impossible to find them on the site. They just fly off the shelves.”
But you know who wasn’t surprised?
My friend Beth Scheppke who proudly owns not one, not two, but three pairs of Crocs.
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“With Crocs I feel like you’re almost taking it a step further, you’re cranking up the ugliness,” my friend Beth explained. “I feel like Crocs are about to take the same trajectory as slides. They were the same way. People thought, ‘Oh these are just the shoes you put on after soccer practice or when you’re on a boat.’”
It’s hard to remember a time when slides weren’t cool, but Beth’s right.
Up until a few years ago, they were just for dweebs. And now they’re everywhere, thanks in no small part to the fact that celebs like Rihanna are designing $80 pairs for nationwide brands like Puma.
And I have to admit, as much as I can’t deny that Crocs are ugly, they’re really comfortable.
After Beth finished telling me all about how Crocs were due to become the latest 2000s thing people can’t get enough of, she let me try hers on and as soon as they were on my feet, I kind of got it.
They’re ridiculously comfortable and light as a frickin feather – plus Beth’s camo print pair actually looked pretty cute with my outfit!
Even if people won’t all be able to share Beth’s genuine love of Crocs, you know a pack of hipster-types will start wearing them ironically.
Either way, watch out world, Crocs are coming for you.
