You saw them, right, the bright pink, yellow and green platform Crocs that featured on Balenciaga’s runway this past weekend?

No? Well, where have you been?

Although Crocs are the official fuglies of the shoe world, comfort has always been their appeal and they have attracted chefs, gardeners and celebs like Mario Batali, Whoopi Goldberg, and Helen Mirren, explains The Daily Beast.

While few others have chosen to don the hideous cousin of the clog, last year Christopher Kane sent the first designer Crocs down the runway. They were even uglier than the original, featuring marble and zebra patterns and blinging crystals and pom-poms.

But what we saw on the runway at the Balenciaga show just might make Crocs cool:

Designer Demna Gavasalia’s triple-tiered Crocs came in a variety of colors [sic], from Pepto-bismol pink to canary yellow, the tops of which were adorned with cutesy charms like flowers, animals, and flags representing different countries.

Take a look for yourself:

As an explanation for his collaboration, Gavasalia “raved about how ‘innovative’ Crocs are”:

“It’s light, it’s a one-piece foam mould and to me these kind of techniques and working with these kind of materials is very Balenciaga,” he told British Vogue.

“In the future you will be able to 3-D print them at home because they are all one piece.”

And what do outsiders have to say about the essentially genderless shoe? Washington Post’s Robin Givhan noted several days ago that:

Balenciaga is a brand “so engrained in our culture” that its runway shows reliably drive culture forward. This season, the models on Gavasalia’s catwalk were diverse in age and ethnicity. They also tend to be unconventionally striking jolies laides, as Givhan pointed out—not unlike Crocs themselves.

Does this signal the beginning of Crocs finally getting their due? Who knows.

[source:thedailybeast]