Are you out of touch? If Crocs aren’t your 13th-favourite brand, then the answer is yes – the brand is on an upswing, and it’s being driven by cool teens.
Quartz reports today that Crocs CEO told investors a big jump in its third-quarter results was being driven by back-to-school spending. This might be dismissed as wishful thinking except for the fact that the brand’s Post Malone collab sold out straight away after it dropped last week.
This has been brewing for a while: you may remember the pink and blue platform Crocs that emerged from the brand collaboration with Balenciaga last year, or the bedazzled and furry Christopher Kane versions, or the sold-out high-heeled ones from earlier this year.
Fun fact: the little charms you can stick in your Crocs are called “jibbitz”. Do with that information what you will.
What does it tell us that formerly daggy travel-dad shit like bumbags, Crocs and checked slacks are now hypebeast essentials? It could be that hipster irony long ago came full circle and started enthusiastically chowing down on its own tail – or it could be that teenagers actually just like being comfortable.
Fashion in the post-normcore era is possibly best explained by the fact that when it comes to what to pair with your chunky Air Jordans or battered Vans, those crappy, slippy, blister-causing no-show sneaker sockettes are out, and white gym socks pulled neatly above the ankles are in.
And who are we to judge? When I was 15 the coolest thing you could put on your feet was these:
Not only are kitten-heel rubber thongs objectively hideous, they were a f**king nightmare for our netball-ruined teenage ankles.
So yeah, you may not love the look of those foam-resin monstrosities – but I ain’t spending any more time on it, because every three minutes a blistered heel is being torn to pieces by a cheap ballet flat or box-fresh pair of Chuck Taylors.
Say no to suffering for fashion. After all, nothing’s sexier than comfort.