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Crocs take a bite out of Race Week
Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, Aug 26, 2005
There were barely four hours between the first time I heard about Crocs at the beginning of Nantucket Race Week and the moment they managed to infiltrate my family.
A real marketing coup. As one of the sponsors of the second annual week-long celebration of sailboat racing, the Crocs team went on the offensive from day one, handing out a pair of Crocs shoes to every junior sailor participating in the races, my brother among them.
I came home to find, strewn on the staircase beside a mildew-ridden life preserver, an enormous pair of size 14, black foam sandals.
The air holes in the large, box-like toes made me wonder for a moment whether the two shoes were actually flotation devices for small rodents trying to escape a sinking vessel. Banishing this curious image from my mind, I began to question how in the world my style-conscious brother could ever have been tricked into wearing shoes which, frankly, have that distinct look of corrective orthopedic footwear.
The key to their success, it seems, is comfort and functionality. Talking to Scott Seamans, a founder of Crocs, aboard his 75-foot sailing yacht Hannibal, it becomes clear that this is a man who has built his business around his favorite hobby. An avid sailor all his life, in 2002 he developed a special shoe, along with co-founder George Boedecker and Duke Hanson, which is ideal for mucking about in boats and allows you to be on your feet all day long.
The three friends started up the company in Colorado and the shoe has become extremely popular all over the Midwest. Seamans and his team are now traveling up and down the East Coast, trying to reach a wider clientele and, particularly, the thriving East Coast sailing community.
At least, this is the official excuse Seamans gives for spending the summer on his yacht. The free shoes were lapped up by the Race Week sailors and, during drinks at the Nantucket Yacht Club after the races, people of all ages were greeting each other with the line, “Hey, you’re wearing ugly shoes too!”
The reasons people took well to them were plentiful. The holes in the toes allow water and sand to pass through with ease and let in air so the shoes dry off quickly. They are perfectly slip-resistant and lightweight to the point that you wonder how they stay on your feet at all. My brother’s enormous shoes usually weigh about as much as a baby seal but his Crocs are barely more than six ounces.
Despite the obviously functional nature of Crocs, which is the sole truly convincing sales pitch, it seems rather to be the style value and “cool-factor” that Seamans is keen to impress. It turns out that my brother, by wearing black Crocs in the daytime, was committing a horrific style faux-pas.
“Most people who buy Crocs own at least three pairs: two in bright colors for the daytime and one in black to sling on in the evening when they go out to dinner,” Seamans explains, his gold skull-and-crossbones earring glinting in the evening sun. I am unconvinced but, surprisingly, his story is corroborated at the surf shop Force 5, whose employees claim they have been selling more than a couple of hundred pairs of Crocs a week. The buyers are mostly parents who come into the store and who are making the purchase for themselves. The shoes are also noticeably rife among young children on Main Street, too young to have a style sense of their own. Undemanding clients like 7-year-old Jessica Mitchel, wears her pair “because they’re purple and they don’t give me blisters.”
Ray Dwyer, captain of Hannibal and a sailing buddy of Seamans’ for the last 25 years, is also a main cog in the Crocs team. “Hey, you’re wearing your Crocs the wrong way,” he points out to me. I give him a confused look. “You’ve got the strap behind your heel. You should wear them forwards for just hanging out and back when racing so your feet don’t slip out. It’s ‘Strap back for high performance’.”
I look down at my feet, which are clad in hot pink and struggle not to giggle at how seriously Seamans and Captain Ray, two of the most unlikely-looking fashion gurus, take their product. Truth be told, they remind me of something Baby Huey might wear along with his over-sized diaper.
I have to admit, though, that it was not long before I warmed to the shoes I was wearing almost as much as I warmed to the enthusiastic Seamans and Dwyer. Perhaps more accurate would be to say that the shoes warmed to me, as the resin soaks up body heat and molds to your feet. I daresay I will never be following Seaman’s advice of slinging on my Crocs to go out for supper, but I’m sure they will accompany me on many a sailing trip. It remains to be seen whether the Crocs’ burst of popularity will be sustained after the initial novelty wears off.
Zoe Briance
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