Economic ebbs are like a revitalizing spring cleaning – we need a good purge every now and then to get rid of cultural gunk.
Come to think of it, ‘purge’ is a totally apropos word to describe the process, since we’ve been on a national binge for quite some time.
And just like carrots are nobody’s idea of a good binge, the stuff we’ve been buying has been positively junky fare.
Like, for example, Crocs shoes. Also, Uggs shoes.
These were meant to be a joke, people – a cultural comment in the form of a costumed farce.
Seriously, how else to explain their names? It has never escaped our attention that “Uggs†is avant-garde for “ugly,†and “Crocs†is chic shorthand for “crocks of sh*t.â€
Never did the designers think that they’d actually catch on. They were designed to be worn, if at all, with irony and a ton of it.
Crocs are the product of a very mismatched marriage: Keds – ubiquitous, comfty – with Jellies – squishy, colorful.
The problem with this particular shoe union is that it’s just too May-December for our tastes. You can’t wear Jellies beyond age 7; you can’t even buy Keds without an AARP card.
Yet every woman somehow thinks she can rock them.
Uggs, for their part, are considerably more substantial than Crocs.
Uggs’ ugliness notwithstanding, at least their warmth, lining, and support justify the price. Except that it doesn’t … all that money, all that ugliness, and they aren’t even waterproof!
Plus, they are ugg-ly. It says so right there on the tag.
Yet, again, every woman somehow thinks she can rock them.
What happened to the concept that shoes should flatter the feet? Crocs and Uggs make women’s feet look like wilted rectangles, wide and ominous and not anything anyone would be interested in wrapping around their backs.
Kidding, of course.
But seriously, we’d be willing to suffer an even steeper economic collapse if that would mean the end of Crocs and Uggs.
Fortunately, the economy needs to worsen only a little to eradicate them completely.
Crocs stock is way down, and has stayed that way for a long time. They’re on their way out for good, apparently.
On the other hand, Uggs stock is faring relatively well. We did say Uggs is the more substantial shoe, people … apparently the stock is more resilient, too. Slowly but surely, though, it’s a dying trend. It has to be – there’s just not money for this sort of stupidity anymore.
Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t include in our almost-postmortem the caveat for resuscitation: Failing companies are the government’s favorite pet projects, after all.
By Amanda Campbell November 3, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Surely someone who thinks they have the wherewithall to comment on a person’s choice of footwear, and how attractive that would make them (but seriously!) would have the requisite intelligence to form a paragraph correctly?
Or maybe not.