Crocs: The ugly footling

He and fellow blogger Ms. Leth have clearly struck a chord with their website, which they created a year ago on a whim and now gets at least 1,000 visitors a day. "I didn't expect it to take off the way it did," he says. They also do a brisk business selling T-shirts and buttons, with logos like "Friends don't let friends wear Crocs," and more simply, "I hate Crocs."

Even in Boulder, where you can buy Crocs at the grocery store along with celery and soy milk, there's something of a backlash. "I don't have any friends who wear Crocs," says Rachel Losowski, a style-conscious senior at the University of Colorado. "They're just really bad. Really weird." As for claims to their comfort, she winces. "When I go out, I want to look nice, not comfortable," she says.

Once, she was out with friends and saw an attractive male heading her way. Then she spotted Crocs on his feet. "I said to him, 'I thought you were cute, but then I saw your shoes!' " she says, laughing.

But at the Pedestrian Shops – the largest Crocs dealer in Colorado – sales of the garish shoes remain brisk. "We sell a couple of thousand pairs every month," says Richard Polk, at his sprawling store on Boulder's postcard-pretty Pearl Street Mall. "We sell more Crocs on a summer day by noon than we do other brands all year long."

Four years ago, Mr. Polk was the first shoe retailer to sell Crocs. Almost immediately, they were a hot item. In 2005, he built an addition to the store to neatly display 5,000 pairs along the walls, gleaming like jelly beans in jars. Polk, who's been in the shoe business since 1969, also walks the talk: Today, he's wearing a worn pair of navy blue Crocs, along with khaki shorts and a black polo shirt. "I wear them most days. I wear them everywhere. I even have some black ones that I call my 'dress Crocs,' " he says.

Boulder, a laid-back city of 100,000, is not exactly known for Parisian chic. Its last significant contribution to pop culture may have been "Mork & Mindy." As far as fashion goes, it's the kind of place where people wear – well, their Crocs ... everywhere. An outsider might think Boulder was home to a clown college.

Yet it's that element of whimsy that accounts for much of Crocs' appeal. "The idea that I can do grown-up serious stuff and wear these silly shoes, that's fun," says Polk. "It's kind of like going to a candy store, but you don't eat it; you wear it."

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While candy-colored feet may not be for everyone, Lyndon "Duke" Hanson, Crocs vice president and cofounder, has a ready reply for naysayers: Just try them on. "We know there are Crocs bashers out there, but we can convert most haters," he says. "We say, 'We know they're ugly, but once you try them on, they're a thing of beauty.' "

In fact, the company's first ad campaign was, "Ugly can be beautiful." But even at Crocs, the iconic success of the shoe has been surprising. "In just five years it went from just the three of us with a startup, to having 5,000 employees worldwide and a $5 billion company," says Mr. Hanson. "It's certainly not something we expected."

Crocs is expanding its line. The company now sells more than 30 models – all variations on the basic cloglike shoe. While cheaper imitations of it now abound, they don't seem to have hurt sales. Come fall, a more stylish brand called YOU by Crocs will arrive in stores, featuring leather shoes and boots that incorporate Crocs resin.

Still, the bright slip-ons remain the company's mainstay. As long as their popularity persists, devoted Crocs haters say they'll continue with their venom, too. Ravina thinks the fad will soon fade – "look at the Macarena," he says.

But Hanson is paying no heed to predictions of doom. "Sure, we had a one-hit wonder of a shoe, and we know that. But once you get to $5 billion, you're not a fad anymore; you've defined an industry," he says. "We're probably the most popular shoe in history."

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