Crocs Live On

In early 2005, JT Barnhart wrote a piece on the new Crocs shoe for PSFK. JT had stumbled upon them on a road trip in Missouri:

I knew I had found something special the moment I spotted them what must have been 30 feet away. They are made of a closed cell resin that feels like the stuff between the sole and insole of running shoes. It softens a little when it gets warm and loosely molds to your feet. I was hooked the moment I tried them on. It feels kind of like walking around on marshmallows. They come in a dozen colors, which seems to be one of the reasons people like them. (Mine are an eye catching orange.)

…At first glance they look a lot like the more rigid Birkenstock “Super Birki” clogs. Some models also loosely resemble Marc Newson’s “Nike Zvezdochka” recently seen at Moss in NYC. Ultimately, the shoe is relatively unique and may even be developing a small cult following.

Since, there has been much debate about how long the fad for the marshmallow shoes would last. In fact the shoes have been around for much longer than most (non-Croc-wearing) people expected. Rob Walker says in his NY Times Magazine column Consumed that the company’s sales through the first quarter of 2007 are roughly triple what they were for the same period in 2006:

Aspiring lifestyle brands are a dime a dozen, but Crocs have trod an unusual path. The shoes caught on first in Middle America, then migrated toward the more trend-centric coasts, possibly aided by the most significant marketing campaign in the company’s brief history: ads in Vanity Fair and other magazines carried the theme “Ugly can be beautiful.” (Mattson says that Batali, previously much-photographed in Chuck Taylor sneakers, discovered Crocs on his own somewhere around 2005; he has his own Crocs line now.) Comfort is the consistent theme in testimonials on the company’s site — despite the presence nearby of, say, a woman wearing Crocs with her wedding dress.”

Consumed
Croc Shoes On PSFK