Manolo in the Baltimore Sun
Manolo says, the Manolo has been quoted in the very amusing article about the Crocs in the Baltimore Sun.
In a world of fashion that has more than its share of don’ts — what exactly is it about a toy-like little shoe with holes that provokes such vitriol?
Is it the candy colors they come in? The plasticity? The cheapness? Is it the brazenness with which Crocs owners have introduced the former boat shoe into polite society, shuffling and shlumpfing around grocery stores, shopping malls — even offices.
“They repulse me,” says Vincenzo Ravina, who founded Ihatecrocs.com with his friend Kate Lesh, the happy snipper. “They are to your eyes what secondhand smoke is to your lungs.”
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TV personality Bill Maher recently focused a diatribe against them that began, “New rule: Stop wearing plastic shoes.”
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Manolo the ShoeBlogger puts Crocs in his “Gallery of Horrors.”
“The Croc-wearers walk about as if they have discovered something special in the unsightly combination of plastic clogs and foot sweat,” Manolo tells The Sun. He attributes their popularity to “the self-destructive cult of comfort.”
“Like sweatpants and mullets,” he says, “they appeal to that demographic which feels most comfortable only in their La-Z-Boys, buffalo wing in hand, or in the NASCAR aisles of their local Wal-Mart. In other words, the Crocs are 21st century peasant shoes … ugly, roomy, cheap and useful for standing knee-deep in pig manure.”
Maher seemed to agree with Manolo and Rudo of Cross Keys when he summed up the Crocs phenomenon as America’s “latest step in our neverending quest to dress as casually as possible.”
“You know I used to wear flip-flops, but they were a little dressy,” he deadpanned. “I want clothes I can hose down.”
Maybe Maher and Manolo are right, that what’s really upsetting the haters is the sense that Crocs are doing more than their part to chip away at our sense of decorum.
It is true. Crocs are not merely the comfortable shoe, they are also indicative of the general relaxing of traditional standards of decorum and respect. What is most troubling, however, is that so few peoples seem to understand this.
The I Dont care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass group on Facebook has nearly 600,000 members. We have guns, we have ammo.
La BellaDonna, she misses the office group with whom she worked; we were a rebellious lot, we with our “Dress-UP Fridays.” There is hope, because some of the group were young, and have perhaps carried the “Dress-UP” message along with them to their new jobs and workplaces.
It may take the few years, but perhaps we will be able to rescue the workplace …
The first time I saw crocs was at a doctor’s visit. The nurses were all wearing them. They were so ugly I thought that they had come with the scrubs. It didn’t hurt that they were the same color as the scrubs, either.
Out of sheer pride, good Manolo, I must assert that not every NASCAR fan is also a Crocs wearer, or slovenly, for that matter. It is certainly possible to simultaneously appreciate the aesthetic value of a well-made shoe and that of a well-made Carl Edwards.
Indeed, it is bad enough to see the Crocs being worn at the grocery store or the mall, but it is even more unsettling to see them worn at the office. I saw a girl from accounting wearing black Crocs with a pink dress at the office last week, and had to reach for my smelling salts.
To quote:
It’s the slob-i-fication of America.
Blech!
Luv
Poochie
shoedaydreams.blogspot.com
Dear Manolo, as the Jessica pointed out, the blame does not solely lie with those who watch NASCAR – far from it. I live in NYC and see all kinds of people who no doubt would be horrified to think of themselves as similar in any way to NASCAR-lovin’ good ole boys and gals and yet who walk around Gotham in hideous crocs. I’ve also seen some otherwise chic Europeans while on vacation in the Caribbean who were all wearing crocs. It’s an epidemic!
Again, Crocs: dang cute on kiddos. A travesty on adults.
The horror is actually that it’s a GLOBAL phenomenon. People wear these ugly smelly things all over the world – before reading your article here I thought crocs would be confined to my home country, the home of Birkenstock and Karl Lagerfeld.
I was so wrong.
But it’s only a phase, the croc will go and become landfill, somewhere in Saudi Arabia.
Today I broke my “do not wear the crocs in public” rule that I imposed on myself last Christmas when my sister gave them to me.
This is because on Saturday I ran the Baltimore Marathon Relay and developed a very tall blister on a small toe that hurt when I wore any other shoes, and it was too cold to wear the flip flops. I decided that this was an acceptable reason to wear the crocs, because I felt superfantastic enough inside with my achievement that for one day it was okay to not be superfantastic on the outside.
Otherwise, I restrict my crocs use to scuba diving vacations when I need a shoe that can be washed off in the water and dry by the time I hit the sand.
Does anyone see anything wrong with that, or is it just me?
Why not just wrap thickly sliced swiss cheese or braided Twizzlers around your feet? That way when you get hungry you can eat them too!!