Over the last year or two we’ve seen a number of fashion designers playing with notions of good and bad taste. Vetements collaborated with Juicy Couture, the brand whose velour tracksuits are perhaps most synonymous with Paris Hilton, and Gosha Rubchinskiy did so with some unfashionable sportswear labels – Kappa, Fila, Sergio Tacchini.
At London Fashion Week last month, Christopher Kane, the Scottish designer praised for his modern aesthetic and strongly feminine looks, also toyed with the idea of ‘cool’ and ‘uncool’ by debuting footwear he’d created in collaboration with Crocs. Yes, Crocs – those foam clogs.
Despite adorning the shoes with precious mineral stones, rendering them much more expensive-looking than they usually are, they were still one of fashion week’s most divisive trends.
In a new interview with WWD, Kane has defended the Croc, revealing that he wears them himself in his spare time. “Crocs are great, I love them,” he says. “I don’t really care what anyone thinks. I don’t think anyone’s got the right to say right or wrong, unless they’re God, otherwise just shut up.”
The designer goes on to explain his reasoning for collaborating with the brand – and it wasn’t about publicity. “I knew people were going to react in that way, but it wasn’t about being controversial. The fact is Crocs is a huge successful business on its own, they don’t need me to make them even more successful,” he continued. “Obviously people do like them, and that’s a different customer that I want to grab. I want to include everyone and not be a snob.”
Kane is backing his corner when it comes to Croc, but what do you think?