Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, many, many of the Manolo’s internet friends have been emailing him links to this story, about the hideous and deadly Crocs.

At rail stations and shopping malls around the world, reports are popping up of people, particularly young children, getting their toes caught in escalators. The one common theme seems to be the clunky soft-soled clogs known by the name of the most popular brand, Crocs.

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In Japan, the government warned consumers last week that it has received 39 reports of sandals — mostly Crocs or similar products — getting stuck in escalators from late August through early September. Most of the reports appear to have involved small children, some as young as two years old.

Kazuo Motoya of Japan’s National Institute of Technology and Evaluation said children may have more escalator accidents in part because they “bounce around when they stand on escalators, instead of watching where they place their feet.”

In Singapore, a 2-year-old girl wearing rubber clogs — it’s unclear what brand — had her big toe completely ripped off in an escalator accident last year, according to local media reports.

And at the Atlanta airport, a 3-year-old boy wearing Crocs suffered a deep gash across the top of his toes in June. That was one of seven shoe entrapments at the airport since May 1, and all but two of them involved Crocs, said Roy Springer, operations manager for the company that runs the airport terminal.

Of the course, all of this is old news for the regular readers of the Manolo’s humble shoe blog. But it is good to finally see this danger being exposed to the wider world.

Manolo says, “Knew a man, Bojangles
And he danced for you
In worn-out shoes
With silver hair, a ragged shirt
And baggy pants, the old soft shoe”

Manolo says, the Manolo has just discovered this series of somewhat amusing viral commercials for the British website that sells the odious Crocs.

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Manolo says, here is yet another article on the rise of the consuming evil that is the Croc, this time from the Christian Science Monitor.

Foot comfort, apparently, appeals to a broad demographic. Fans include celebrity chef Mario Batali, actor Jack Nicholson, and country-music stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. Recently, President Bush was photographed sporting black Crocs, which he paired with black socks and shorts. In nations as diverse as Israel and Iceland, 1 in 4 people own a pair of the shoes.

The Crocs phenomenon is not purely a love-fest, however. Detractors abound, and they aren’t diplomatic with their diatribes. On Manolo’s Shoe Blog (http://shoeblogs.com/), Crocs are termed “the hot trend in footwear for the lazy person.” And on ihatecrocs.com, Vincenzo Ravina and Kate Leth devote an entire website “to the elimination of Crocs and those who think their excuses for wearing them are viable.”

Ask Mr. Ravina why he finds Crocs so objectionable, and then take a breath. “They are exceedingly ugly. They are chunky, luridly colored, perforated, and overall, an eyesore,” he replies. “They are to your eyes what second-hand smoke is to your lungs.”

Ravina, a college student from Halifax, Nova Scotia, scoffs at testaments to the comfort of Crocs. “My bathrobe is comfortable,” he says. “But I don’t wear it to the supermarket. You have to respect other people’s aesthetic.”

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Even in Boulder, where you can buy Crocs at the grocery store along with celery and soy milk, there’s something of a backlash. “I don’t have any friends who wear Crocs,” says Rachel Losowski, a style-conscious senior at the University of Colorado. “They’re just really bad. Really weird.” As for claims to their comfort, she winces. “When I go out, I want to look nice, not comfortable,” she says.

Once, she was out with friends and saw an attractive male heading her way. Then she spotted Crocs on his feet. “I said to him, ‘I thought you were cute, but then I saw your shoes!’ ” she says, laughing.

Well done, Ms. Losowski!

This ridicule and scorn are exactly what the Manolo has begun to advocating as the proper response to the wearing of the Crocs.

Join the Manolo in speaking out against this abomination. Do not let your friends buy these shoes, and shun anyone who dares wear them on the street. Our greatest weapon is social pressure which much be applied liberally and forcefully.

It so sad that it has come to this point, and yet, the Manolo fears that we have not yet plumbed the depths of this depravity.

Manolo says, yes, these are exactly what the appear to be, the death of civilization as we know it.

Formerly, one could take comfort in the fact that the odious Crocs could not be worn in the depths of winter. Now, with the introduction of the fake-fur-lined Crocs, such bare solace is gone.

P.S. Many thanks to the Manolo’s internet friend Linda for alerting him to this abomination.

Manolo says, little baby children, such as the Violet Affleck seen above, may wear the Crocs. However, if you are the fully grown person you should avoid these ridiculous and childish rubber monstrosities.

“But Manolo,” cry the infantile, the misguided, and the willfully perverse, “the Crocs, they are so comfortable”.

Manolo answers, “so are the cardboard boxes filled with the combination of styrofoam packing peanuts and Vaseline.”

And just as the sensible person knows not to submerge their feets into such things, no matter how pleasant it may seem, so too does the sensible person know to avoid the Crocs.”

Manolo says, as the Croc empire of evil attempts to impose its hegemonisitic desires upon the citizens of the world, the the tiny-but-valiant anti-Croc resistance struggles under the oppressive rubber heel fighting for all that is stylish and holy. Look, here is one of the Manolo’s comrades-in-arms, the Marcelle D’Argy Smith fighting the good fight in the Daily Mail.

If there is one thing, in my view, which is guaranteed to drive a woman screaming in the other direction, it is the sight of a man who should know better sporting a luridly technicolour pair of shoes which would look far more suitable on a four-year-old girl.

The damn things look like clumsy rubbery clogs with large perforations.

They’re called Crocs because they resemble a reptile’s snout.

Seductive, eh? And yet six million pairs have been sold around the world already. We are drowning in Crocs.

You may understand the quirky nature of Mr Nicholson - but what about the other ten million pairs of Crocs they’re projected to sell this year? Not all of those people can be ramblers, fisherman and ageing beach bums, surely?

I was just listening to Ella Fitzgerald singing Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and sighing at the line “I’ll worship the trousers that cling to him”. I then tried to imagine the trousers of a man I loved, teamed with orange or bright-blue Croc shoes.

Go on. You try it. Torture yourself at the thought of the man in your life succumbing to this massive manipulation marketing-gonemad Crocs trend. There’s no telling with an Englishman: he might even wear brown socks with his orange Crocs. You’ll leave him,

Crocs of course. No woman could be expected to live with that.

[…]

Perhaps it’s because wearing them makes them feel about 12 again - you know, when they went on that shrimping holiday to Devon and wore those foul beige jelly sandals.

Now, hey presto, with a mortgage and two kids, they can spend £30 and feel as though they are the coolest cats in town all over again.

Yes, the marketeers have done their work. “They’re comfortable; they’re cheap,” they bleat. May they rot in Croc hell. In fact, I find the thought of a middle-aged man wearing them so repulsive that I’m almost prepared to march on this one.

Hell is too good for the likes of the Crocs manufacturers, Comrade D’Argy Smith, too good, indeed.

Manolo says, Jack Nicholson wears Crocs!

Manolo says, the Robin Givhan of the Washington Post has spoken. Heed her wisdom.

Did someone say comfortable? Because this is a culture quick to justify wearing virtually anything in the name of comfort — pajama bottoms as pants, sneakers as business footwear, leggings in lieu of trousers, Uggs with miniskirts — Crocs now rival flip-flops as the most annoyingly omnipresent style of summer footwear. City streets are inundated with shuffling phalanxes of men and women with bright orange, yellow and red Bozo feet.

The shoes can look cute on children. But all those adults walking around in Crocs, going on about how comfortable they are, look like overgrown children. They are like the workday Peter Pans who carry backpacks in the city. Not grown-up leather backpacks, but the kind made of nylon with water bottles stuck inside a web of bungee cords and a canister of Bear Be Gone hanging off the side. They have mistaken their walk to the office for a climb to the summit of the Grand Tetons.

Why, oh why, must people assimilate perfectly reasonable, functional and cheeky sports attire into street clothes? Why couldn’t they keep their Crocs on the boat or in the garden?

Testify, Sister Robin, testify!

If this not enough to convince you that the Crocs are the abominations, perhaps you will listen to the Tim Gunn.

And if the combined weight of the Manolo, the Robin Givhan, and the Tim Gunn do not convince you that the Crocs should be avoided, you are perhaps beyond redemption.

P.S. Many thanks to the Manolo’s internet friends who sent him this important article.