Ok, I’ll admit it: I bought a pair of Crocs last week. You know, those shoes made out of plastic resin closed-cell foam that look vaguely Scandinavian and mostly nerdy, that seem to be waterproof and odor-resistant, and are ugly? I didn’t buy a fancy-colored Croc, and I didn’t go with my college colors of crimson and cream, and I didn’t buy the ones with big drainage holes - I went with solid-body basic black for a more formal look. I bought dress Crocs.
Not being a fashion-forward kind of guy I was slow to enter the Croc world because they didn’t look like real shoes to me. They reminded me of the clear plastic Jellies my daughter used to wear. They looked like toy shoes to me. They looked like gardening clogs worn by Dutch grandmothers when they dig turnips. I thought the fact that Crocs were featured in “Injection Molding Magazine� was a good reason to avoid them. They looked like gimmick-wear to me, so I stayed away from them.
My typical plan when something trendy starts to invade my life is to wait it out until it goes away, and once it passes into oblivion I’m happy for all the money I saved. But I kept seeing Crocs on people I admired, and those same people kept telling me how comfortable they were, so I decided to take a second look.
So what happened to push me over the edge, you may ask? Well, I had an Academy Sports gift card burning a hole in my pocket and since I already had all the socks I needed and all the backpacking gear I wanted and I’d already treated Cyndi to a back-to-school clothes shopping spree, Crocs were the only items left. And then a friend reminded me that my long resistance to joining the trendy and hip iPod crowd had been a mistake and now that I have a Nano it’s become one of my favorite won’t-leave-home-without-it possessions. “Maybe Crocs will work out the same way,� my friend could’ve said.
And besides, for most of my life, at least since I’ve been responsible for dressing myself, I’ve chosen comfort over style. I’m sure that fact comes as no surprise to anyone who’s seen me in my blue jeans and black polo shirt, again and again and again. The only reasons I wear grownup dress clothes is so people will have confidence in me, and because Cyndi likes the way I look in a suit (or better yet, in a tux!) and can’t keep her hands off of me, and who could resist encouragement like that?
I’m not alone in choosing comfort over fashion. Our entire American world has been dressing more casual these past few years. We started by leaving our neckties at home and wearing Dockers on Casual Fridays, which soon spread into the rest of the week. Now we are so casual it’s apparently acceptable to wear worn-out holey jeans and flip-flops to church. It’s an easier way to live, and we convince ourselves that being so casual is a more authentic and transparent way to live – less pretentious and all that. We treat casual living as a virtue.
But some things shouldn’t be casual. Last week I attended two police ceremonies and I was moved by the formalities. There was nothing casual about any of it: the honor guard posting the colors, the white-gloved dress uniforms, the snap salutes, everyone standing at attention. I thought it was appropriate that there are still some corners of our lives when we aren’t casual at all.
And maybe knowing that those colonies of formality still exist made my move into ultra-casual footwear seem less flippant. It isn’t as if I burst on the Croc scene as a pacesetter. No, I waited until they were declared fashionably dead before diving in. On his popular website and blog, www.ihatecrocs.com, fashionista Vincenzo Ravina sells T-shirts saying, “They(Crocs) are to your eyes what secondhand smoke is to your lungs.� I’m not sure his T-shirts are a step in the direction he thinks they are.
As a counter to Ravina’s website, I’ll offer this quote from Cliff (the mailman) from the final episode of Cheers: “If you’re not wearing comfortable shoes, life is just chaos. All the greatest accomplishments in history have been made by people in accommodating shoes.�
So now that my feet are comfortable, I hope I can stay more current in the future. I’m asking you to help me know which fashion trends to join and which to avoid. Don’t be afraid to give me advice – I need it.
