Oh dear: Alice really doesn’t like Crocs
BY ALICE DUCKHAM-HAZELRIGG-KINLAY
Crocs are just utterly hideous.
The design may have made the three founders into multi-millionaires, but this is not reason enough for me to be convinced. There are certain things that I have always considered to be questionable, but nothing quite divides the masses like these: wide, bright, foamy, slightly orthopaedic-looking – the stuff of nightmares for many that hold style and dignity with high regard.
The website boasts wearability for ‘any occasion’. Really? Imagine rocking up to a Great Aunt’s funeral in a pair. I expect that you would be cast out by your family not only for the irreverence, but the complete lack of good judgement.
Okay, I accept that for those under the age of 10 (and some may argue that even this is being incredibly generous), Crocs may serve as a somewhat practical piece of apparel due to their vegan and dishwasher-proof qualities, although this still does not make them desirable in any way.
This is why, when I saw a pair of marbled, jewel encrusted ones by Christopher Kane in his Spring/Summer 2017 collection, what immediately sprung to mind was that no, there are certain things that one cannot polish, although anything can easily be rolled in glitter (and sold for 9 times more than their non-jewelled counterparts). Needless to say, I was slightly at a loss.
So they are utilitarian. ‘Is this not at least something that is worth appreciating?’ you may be poised to ask. And yes, there is something about their ‘foreign styling’ and eco-qualities that makes their ugliness slightly permissible.
Having said this, there is definitely something disconcertingly indestructible about these squishy clogs/Cornish pasty lookalikes – so much so, in fact, that the company has lost $185 million.
The problem is that they are just so indestructible that they cancel out any need to buy new ones – and rather the wearers who should, in theory, grow out of them just wear them until their feet spill out of the unsightly holes and right off of the backs, donning them with socks during the winter months.
Right now, as the company slowly becomes bankrupt, there is still a huge warehouse in Colorado filled with brightly coloured Crocs gathering dust. One day, something terrible will happen and the apocalypse will have ravaged the Earth. A new population will be searching the planet for traces of a former civilisation.
Amongst the smoke and the rubble, having outlasted Stonehenge, a pair of perky yellow crocs will be found intact – the entire history of life as we know it will be epitomised in this squeaky Croslite clog.Â