(Continued...)

Crocs also recently cut a deal with Disney for a cutesy character-themed line, and the clogs were featured in Extra's Gift Lounge at the Emmys. Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the ad agency of the moment, famous for hip campaigns for Mini, Volkswagen, and Burger King, recently celebrated the opening of its Boulder office by buying a thousand pairs—complete with the agency's logo—for its employees.

"They represent a kind of democracy in shoes, and they're something of a backlash against increasingly expensive shoes," says trendspotter Lucian James of San Francisco's Agenda Inc. "Once you get trends where people are interested in more and more expensive shoes, you find people stepping off that bandwagon into something that is completely the opposite. These shoes jump into that niche."

Consumers, however, have taken the backlash against Crocs—or the backlash against the backlash—into their own hands. Ihatecrocs.com, a website founded by two Canadian teens, demonstrates that Crocs are, among other things, disturbingly indestructible. In a homemade video that appears on the site, the shoes eventually succumb to flames after being riddled with a wide range of fireworks. Manolo the Shoeblogger, meanwhile, declares Crocs to be shoes from "a hypothetical dystopian future, one in which inmates must be dressed in the footwear least likely to be useful in the popular uprising against the regime."

"I have to say that these things are hideous!" adds Jay Escobara, cofounder of New York-based design collective Saenai. "Crocs personify the 'eclectic' person who really isn't all that different from the Kmart shopper but pretends to follow the trend in hopes it might place him among a group of people and/or lifestyle."

Ugliness might be the secret of Crocs' success, however. Last year's print campaign—which smacked of Volkswagen's legendary ads from the early '60s—even featured the tagline "Ugly Can Be Beautiful." "I think the ugliness is a big part of it," says James. "They're very much a statement against sexy shoes, and it's an interesting statement to make, to step away from any kind of looking good, to do things for comfort rather than style."

If aesthetic considerations alone can't stop Crocs (and what James calls the "grim" scenes of entire families dressed in the things), what can? Perhaps only Crocs themselves. How many people can have them before nobody wants them—like trucker hats or Uggs or (gulp!) jellies? Crocs, like Lance Armstrong bracelets and Nicole Richie, feel like perfect fodder for a future episode of VH1's I Love the 00s, which is sure to arrive sooner than you think. James warns that unless the company comes up with another idea by next summer, Crocs could easily become "the Von Dutch of footwear."

Fortunately for us, winter is just around the corner.

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