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Crocs – Comfort, Color Win Out Over High Couture
The Monitor, Jun 24, 2006
Some shoes stop traffic. Others exude sex appeal.
CROCS create conversation.
Made from synthetic, foam-like resin, CROCS are the Birkenstocks of today’s generation. From screaming yellow, to lime green to orange, the sheer brightness of the super-comfy shoes grab attention. Even the tamer colors like white and black provoke questions.
The shoes, which have become a national trend, hit the market in July 2002. Originally marketed as a boat shoe, the footwear broke into the mainstream in 2003, when people started wearing them simply for comfort, Tia Mattson, public relations manager for CROCS, said. The shoes are lightweight, slip-resistant and affordable, she said.
“They’re an everything shoe,” Steven Sosa, of McAllen, said. “You can do everything in them.”
The brand of shoes has a variety of styles, from the Professional, which is designed to be worn under scrubs, to the slip resistant, non-marking flip-flop like the Athens line. Off-roading CROCS, one of the newest shoes in the CROCS family, give wearers the joy of a lightweight shoe with the security of non-slip soles and a secure back strap.
CROCS wearers range from two year olds to the elderly, Mattson said.
“There’s not a single person who couldn’t be a consumer,” she said. “It’s really, really diverse.”
Mattson admits that slightly more women than men purchase the shoes.
People buy them for their function, for fashion, because they’re trendy and maybe because they’re environmentally friendly. “They are very, very clean,” Mattson said. “We don’t use any harmful toxins.”
But many CROCS wearers aren’t as excited about the environmental aspects of the shoes as they are about their comfort.
“I like the comfort since I do a lot of walking and standing,” Chico Meyer, director of cardiovascular services at Doctor’s Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg. “They provide a lot of cushion on the bottom of your foot. It’s like walking on air, pretty much.”
Meyer said he wears his CROCS everywhere – to his job, to do yard work – he even has a red pair for coaching the Sharyland baseball team.
His co-workers call him the CROCS guru. That could be because he has five pairs in five screaming colors – red, orange, yellow, blue and green.
Meyer said he sees more doctors wear CROCS to work because they make standing and walking for long periods of time more comfortable. Most of the doctors wear tan or black CROCS, but one OB/GYN proudly sports purple ones, he said.
Not everybody sees the beauty of the oddly shaped shoes. They have been dubbed by some as the ugliest shoes ever.
However, the shoes’ ugliness has not dissuaded hundreds of people throughout the Rio Grande Valley to sport the footwear.
“At first they (customers) are like ‘Eew, they’re ugly,’ but when they put them on they are like ‘Ooh, I like these,’” said Jay Lozano, assistant buyer for Quips N Quotes.
The shoes also cross socio-economic and gender lines. “Everybody wears them – I’ve seen older people buy them, kids, teenagers,” Lozano said. Since last fall, when the store first started carrying CROCS, the entire staff has been turned onto the shoe, he said.
Sosa, 27, of McAllen bought his first pair of CROCS two months ago after his family raved about them. Now he can’t seem to take them off his feet.
“I wear them everyday,” he said. Craig Lewis, executive vice president of Texas State Bank, said he loves his bright yellow CROCS, even though some people tease him for his footwear choice.
“I saw them and they looked kind of outrageous,” Lewis said, explaining how he came to purchase his CROCS. “Now I hardly ever take them off, except when I go to work. The more I wear them, the more I use them. I wear them everywhere I go.”
This year the company started marketing two lines of shoes for people with specific health problems: Relief and Cloud. Relief provides therapeutic relief for plantar and heel pain, metatarsalgia, which is pain in the ball of the foot, and achy feet through an ultra soft sole. Cloud, designed for diabetics, has a protective toe cap, elevated heel rim and super soft foot bed.
Holes on the sides of all the lines allow for air, water, sand and other substances to pass easily into and out of the shoe. The back strap on most of the shoes keeps them snugly in place, while the small holes on the top of many of the shoes keep wearers’ feet from getting overheated. As an added bonus, the bright colors allow an individual to make a style statement.
After purchasing his yellow CROCS, Lewis bought a pair for every member of his family – although the rest of the family chose less daring colors.
“They’re very fun. I enjoy them,” he said.
Where to get your CROCS:
On-line: www.CROCS.com
In Stores:
Journeys #905
La Plaza Mall, 2200 S 10th St., McAllen
Dillard’s
La Plaza Mall, 2200 S. 10th St., McAllen
Quips N Quotes
5011 N.10th St., McAllen
Sun Harvest
2008 N. 10th St., McAllen
- Paige Lauren Deiner
Paige Lauren Deiner covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4425.
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