People love to claim that ‘Crocs are cool’ now, but are they?

This might be a bit of an exaggeration, but these days it definitely feels like you don’t leave your house without seeing multiple pairs of Crocs.

We’re talking all kinds: plain ones, tie-dyed ones, Justin Bieber ones, ones embellished with all kinds of Jibbitz, you name it.

While my first sentence might certainly ring true, I have to wonder, when did it start becoming true… when did everybody decide that they were going to start rocking Crocs?

That notion might prove particularly hard to pinpoint, but I definitely remember a point in life when Crocs were much less of a footwear minority than they are today.

Six months ago, Highsnobiety coined Crocs as “an unlikely fashion success story”. And according to them, its the shoes’ practicality that has seen them become a preferred line of footwear, not just by chefs, but by the fashion industry too.

A gemstone embellished, marbled pair of rubber clogs first appeared on the runways in 2016, thanks to fashion brand Christopher Kane.

And from there, it was only up… literally, with Balenciaga taking Crocs to new heights, a collab that no one saw coming.

And it didn’t stop there with Balenciaga and Christopher Kane. Other high fashion and streetwear labels imparted their takes on the clogs including brands like Pleasures in 2018, as well as even more recently by Alife in 2020.

There was also that one time that KFC did a Crocs collab and of course, there’s also that element of celebrity influence. Remember that time in 2018 when Post Malone took to Twitter to share, ‘u can tell a lot about a man by the jibbits on his crocs.”

u can tell a lot about a man by the jibbits on his crocs

— Post Malone (@PostMalone) June 6, 2018

So what is it? Is it the practicality? Is it the high fashion influence? Or is it the celebrity endorsement?

Maybe it’s not even about whether Crocs are ‘cool’ or not… maybe we just accepted them? And that in itself is pretty cool.

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