As someone who came of age in the Bush, Jr. era, the 2000’s revival has been…interesting to watch.
The passage of time has revealed the unpredictability of fashion, and many things I could never imagine being cool have become tried-and-true staples over the past few years. Like, really? “Vintage” Ed Hardy racking up hundreds of dollars on the resale market? Uggs and Crocs— two brands that were essentially punchlines 20 years ago—aren’t just cool but wardrobe staples? Lest we forget, one of the driving forces of the 2000s’ reactionary aesthetics was irony.
I’ve gotten Stockholm-syndromed hard enough by the ubiquitousness and convenience of Crocs that I’ve contemplated buying a pair myself. Still, I do wonder if, like skinny jeans, this now-acceptable basic isn’t immune to its own inevitable expiration date. Maybe Crocs are here to stay, and I’m wrong to think they’ll ever go back to being uncool, but every so often, one of their umpteenth collabs gives me flashbacks to seeing them on the fanbase I originally associated them with—rural evangelical families. It’s maybe the most quintessentially American audience out there, the kind that lives in McMansions and doesn’t have access to much culture beyond the shopping centers and undead malls Bath & Body Works seems to be carrying on its back. And, well, those two deeply Western forces have come together to create a really strangepair of shoes.
