According to Crocs, over 850 million pairs have been sold since 2002; it now has annual sales of over $2.3 billion.
The shoes have been worn by everyone from Al Pacino and George W. Bush to new Broncos co-owner Lewis Hamilton, who modeled combat-boot-style Crocs for the brand’s collaboration with Balenciaga (yes, you read that right). What started two decades ago as a simple foamy clog with thirteen holes per shoe and a strap that could flip up or down has been spun off into designer platforms, heels and utility shoes.
Though the Croc was originally designed for boating, it has landlocked Colorado running through its rubbery history. Founded by two University of Colorado graduates and one of their friends, the company was headquartered in Niwot before moving to Broomfield in 2020.
Here are some fun facts about Colorado’s most famous fashion:
The Crocs company was born on a boat
Over two decades ago, Lyndon Hanson and George Boedbecker Jr., two University of Colorado Boulder grads, met up with friend Scott Seamans for a sailing trip. As Hanson detailed in a Parents story in 2009, Seamans had been trying to brand and sell a foam clog through a Canadian company, and asked his buddies to try it out. The shoes were named partly for the material from which they were made: Croslite, which is not actually rubber, but a type of closed-cell resin that floats and is slip-resistant.The pals both thought the shoes were ugly, but after giving them a shot, they realized how comfortable they could be.The trio decided to bring the product to the States, and lived on a boat off the coast of Miami to keep costs down while they launched the brand. Crocs debuted at a boat show in Fort Lauderdale in 2002; in 2004, the brand secured exclusive rights to Croslite. In 2006, the product went public to resounding success.
Jibbitz, a Croc accessory, was invented in Colorado
Sheri Schmelzer, a Boulder-based mother of three, invented Jibbitz, accessories that plug into the holes of Crocs to personalize the shoes. That creation got its start when Schmelzer threaded a silk flower through the holes of one of the family’s many pairs of Crocs, then realized others might like the same thing. That was in 2005. By 2006, the family had moved the operation from their basement to a warehouse.As fate would have it and legend tells it, Schmelzer’s daughter Lexie was rocking some Jibbitz units at a Boulder pool when Hanson, one of the Crocs founders, noticed the adorned shoes and asked Lexie to pass his information on to Sheri. (The likely real story is less fun and involves the Schmelzers meeting up with Crocs representatives at a trade show in Las Vegas.) But there's no question that the Schmelzers sold the business to Crocs in 2006 for $10 million, with another $10 million to come if the brand reached profit goals. Sheri and her husband, Rich, ran the brand for Crocs for several years after the acquisition before founding GeoPalz, which made wireless pedometers for children and had an outpost on Pearl Street in Boulder.
Crocs can make your mouth water
Part of the brand’s success has involved partnerships with celebrities and other established brands, including collaborations with KFC (formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) and Hidden Valley Ranch. The KFC Crocs have the image of fried chicken sprinkled on top of a white base, with a red-and-white-striped rim simulating a bucket of chicken along the bottom and top. The Hidden Valley Crocs are mainly white with speckles meant to look like ranch dressing. Both come with special-edition Jibbitz: drumsticks for KFC and a variety of snacks along with a bottle of ranch for the Hidden Valley shoes.Starting on November 7 (read:11/7), 7-Eleven will release more items from its own Crocs collaboration. The line includes slide, clog and platform versions of the shoes that come in 7-Eleven colors, complete with Slurpee Jibbitz.
Crocs: Hot or not?
When they first saw them, Hanson and Boedbecker told Seamans that his shoes were ugly. And people still mock Crocs, as has been extensively documented on the blog I Hate Crocs dot com, started by magician and writer Vincenzo Ravina and his friend, designer and creative Kate Leth. Throughout the late 2000s, Ravina and Leth catalogued people’s hatred of Crocs and documented themselves destroying the shoe in various creative ways. Ravina last posted on the site in 2021, saying that while he and Leth have moved on, he plans to leave the website up so that those reacting to the renewed Croc boom with confusion will have a place to turn to and be comforted, knowing they aren’t the only ones who think the shoe might just be the ugliest thing they’ve ever seen.Croc stars: Red carpet-ready
Despite the controversy over their looks, stars are rocking Crocs on the red carpet with increased frequency. And it’s not the formal, heeled version that they’re going with. QuestLove of the Roots, who took home the Oscar for Best Documentary for Summer of Soul in 2022, wore Crocs to the event. He also wore the shoes to the 2021 Grammy Awards. Although he might be the first winner to sport the look, he’s not alone in trotting them out for some of entertainment's biggest nights.Whoopi Goldberg has worn Crocs to many big occasions over the years, and Justin Bieber wore them to the 2022 Grammys. Succession’s Nicholas Braun wore Crocs with a suit to the 2020 Emmys.
Crocs have their own “Florida Man”
The "Florida Man” meme grew out of the endless stories of the wild antics that get Floridians arrested. As the theory goes, if you search for your birthday and “Florida man” on the internet, you’re sure to find a unique and hilarious circumstance. Crocs has its own “Florida Man” story: In 2018, a man wearing “a Croc-like shoe” broke into the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park and dove into the crocodile pit, sustaining a crocodile bite. His shoe was left behind in the pit when he went to the hospital for medical attention.Crocs v. Crocodiles
Croc Day is stolen from National Crocodile Day. Before 2017, October 23 was known as National Crocodile Day — but then Crocs lovers thought it would be fun to co-opt the day for their beloved shoes. The celebration stuck. Fortunately, the reptile still has World Croc Day on June 17, designed to educate people about its plight as an endangered species.You can immerse yourself in Crocs at Miller Farms
Miller Farms, a family-owned farm in Platteville, hosts a Fall Harvest Festival through mid-November. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, people can explore the farm, harvest their own vegetables and enjoy fall activities like corn mazes and hayrides. But the big draw is the Croc-pit: a foam pit made entirely of hacked-up bits of Crocs. In June 2021, a tornado hit the farm, causing $40,000 in damages, but people donated to a GoFundMe for the farm, and it's since rebounded, bringing back the Harvest Festival and the Croc-pit.Crocs won the pandemic
The first year of the pandemic was a difficult time for many companies (and people). But it was a boom time for Crocs: The company totaled $1.4 billion in sales in 2020, a 12.6 percent increase from 2019. And it's only gone up from there. In the second quarter of 2022, Crocs reported $732.2 million in revenue, 14.3 percent up from the same time period in 2021.The situation hasn't always been so cushy: Crocs has had several brushes with bankruptcy. But not lately. While people were working at home, they embraced Crocs.
“There is a distinct style rising: waist-up versus waist-down,” trend forecaster Marie-Michèle Larivée told W magazine in 2020. “Waist-up is proper Monday to Friday, but waist-down is on weekend mode, all week long. Waist-down, out of frame from video calls, is a style mix with ironic items or very strong debatable potential.”
Debatable, maybe. But Crocs are undeniably comfortable. And that's the ugly truth.
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