Have Trump’s Tariffs Finally Put an End to Crocs’ 19-Year Reign?

I’ve been the Guardian’s Crocs correspondent for 19 years now, and get wheeled out for highs and lows. This is a definite low for the rubbery perforated clogs: the share price is down nearly 30 percent — its lowest level in three years — and revenues are expected to drop by between 9 and 11 percent in the current quarter.

To blame? Donald Trump mostly, and his tariffs. It’s not the first time Crocs have suffered at the hands — or feet — of a Republican US president, as it happens.

I remember the beginning. They’d actually been around since 2002, but it was 2006 when the revolution properly got going. A bunch of cool people — Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon, Al Pacino — began to be seen out and about in them. George W Bush too, over presidential seal-emblazoned golf socks (the crocs’n’socks debate is an issue in itself), but even that didn’t stop Crocs’ inexorable rise.

Fearful of missing out, I got myself a pair, in black (play safe to start with). I remember putting them on for the first time, a Cinderella glass slipper moment. How can they be so comfortable? So light? (Answer to the latter: because they’re not in fact made from rubber, but a proprietary cell resin called Croslite).

They took me on holiday — the beach, boats and rocks — with no need for any other footwear. And then back from holiday, home, gardening, putting the bins out in the snow (socks allowed). I began to wear them at work; not just me: kitchen workers, hospital workers, cleaners, nurses, surgeons. As well as pairing well with scrubs, they’re easy to clean, comfortable to stand in for long periods and the little nodules on the inside massage the undersides of our feet. I’ve worn them ever since.

The revolution didn’t meet with universal approval. The style police came for us, brandishing truncheons. Crocs are ugly they said, they look like clown shoes. Maxim magazine ranked them the sixth worst thing to happen to men in 2007; they made a Time magazine worst invention list in 2010; blogs popped up, like IHateCrocs.com; plus a Facebook group, I Don’t Care How Comfortable Cros Are, You Look Like a Dumbass.

Ha, guess what though: we were right and they were wrong. Fashion was the dumbass, and finally saw sense. Christopher Kane sent Croc-shod models down the catwalk at his 2017 spring show. Balenciaga hopped on the bandwagon, and then up, with a 10 cm platform version, encrusted with what Vogue said looked like “the kind of plastic fridge magnets sold at airports.” Yours for just £600.

Crocs had a good pandemic, with record £1 billion revenue in 2020, and continued to do well in the early 2020s. The Crocerati continued to grow too — Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj (the Crocs website crashed after she posted a picture of herself in a hot pink bedazzled pair). Some of us smiled quietly to ourselves; yeah all right Nicki, we’ve known for some time.

Royal approval too. When David Hockney — David Hockney! — went to lunch at Buckingham Palace, he wore a checked suit and a pair of yellow Crocs. “Yellow galloshes!” declared King Charles, alighting on the nearest thing from his own world. “Beautifully chosen!”

As well as tariffs, trade uncertainty and consumer timidity, there has been some speculation that Crocs’ near 20-year stranglehold on the “ugly shoe” space is loosening, with other options snapping at the heels of the market leader. My colleague Tim Dowling has been spotted wandering around in what seem to be a pair of foot-gloves. Ridiculous! You’re not going to go to Buckingham Palace in those, are you?

Crocs teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in 2009, but came back. Fashion — and the markets — are fickle things, they go up and down, like the tides. Class is permanent though. We the faithful will stand steadfastly, like Antony Gormley figures (does Gormley wear Crocs, anyone know?), while those tides — along with fads and US presidents — come and go. The water and the sand will pour out through the holes, we will be comfortable and happy, and yes, cool, because we will be wearing, and continue to wear, Crocs.

By Sam Wollaston