Why are we wearing such UGLY shoes this summer?

By Liz Jones for The Mail on Sunday

Updated: 02:05 EST, 2 July 2010


The height of fashion? TV presenter Alexa Chung sporting her pair of heeled clogs

The height of fashion? TV presenter Alexa Chung sporting her pair of heeled clogs

Something very bad has happened to British women's feet. Last summer, it was all about the pretty flat gladiator.

Women had cool, comfy sandals covered in crystals or rosebuds. It was all very feminine and flirtatious.

Fast-forward to this summer and, oh, what a very different scene confronts us.

On a hot day in London, I have been staring aghast at women's feet - and I am beginning to think I must have been transported to a BBQ somewhere in the Outback of Australia, one hosted by neanderthals.

Women of all ages, shapes and sizes are wearing odd, moulded, rigid monstrosities in colours so bright they hurt my eyes.

They are wearing a breed of shoe that surely belongs in a trailer park, beneath a white towelling shell-suit.

Because this is the summer of the Ugly Shoes. And the chief villain of the piece? Crocs.

These plastic monstrosities have now spawned a whole range of spin-off designs.

There is the Patricia - a plastic silver spaceship that, for £30, will loom menacingly on each paw. Or, worse, how about the bright pink Cabana: a Croc with… a heel! 

And finally there is the Classic Hello Kitty Croc, although how anything that is a Croc, and is in any way associated with a Japanese cartoon cat, can earn the sobriquet 'classic' is anybody's guess. 

Catherine Zeta-Jones
Brooke Shields

Unfeminine: Catherine Zeta-Jones wears clogs, while Brooke Shields teams her evening gown with a glimpse of co-ordinating Crocs

Crocs have lots of holes, which means they are cooler than a plimsoll. But does the fact something has air vents really qualify it to be worn on all occasions: at a summer party, in the supermarket in the office, on a date?

We have experienced the blight of the awful summer shoe before, of course.

Remember the Jelly? A bright, rubbery, cheap, garish, jaunty, childish buckle shoe that made even grown, high-powered women skip and feel an urge to wear glittery hair slides. 

But Britain's pavements are particularly blighted this summer. The clog, a heavy wooden shoe with a black upper sole, usually held in place with the sort of rivets found on leather club chairs, has returned this summer to haunt us.

Shoes
Shoes

Awful: Now new styles of Crocs are set to blight our summer

The clog is everywhere, from the High Street to labels such as Marni, where you can buy a super-high, super-heavy pair of leather slingback clogs that will give you the gait of a hippo for the equally steep price of £380.

There is the super-high bondage gladiator, with so many straps to secure that you are always late for work, and also in danger of developing DVT.

Even the Scholl sandal has made a comeback: I saw so many women wearing the white leather version at the shows in Milan last week that very soon impressionable females all over Britain will be buying their shoes from their local chemist - to me, this shoe smacks of haemorrhoid cream and plasters.

What happened to the days when a woman chose her shoes on the basis of what made her look more elegant and more . . . well, feminine?

On this summer's evidence, I say roll on winter.

 


Comments (21)

Share what you think

 View all

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now