15 Crazy Facts About Crocs That Will Shock You!

When I think of Crocs, I remember the first and only pair I ever owned: a baby pink monstrosity bursting with just about every Jibbitz shoe charm I could get my hands on. The year was 2012, and while I was arguably a complete loser, I never felt cooler than when I had my Crocs on.

That said, I never actually knew that much about the brand itself. Sure, I’ve seen it pop-up in headlines every now and again, and I was definitely aware of the time they collaborated with Balenciaga to produce probably the ugliest shoe known to man. But I didn’t really know anything about Crocs beyond the fact that they existed.

I’m willing to bet that you don’t either.

So, because I had to go down a virtual rabbit hole about everyone’s favorite shoe, you do too.

Here’s 15 crazy facts about Crocs that will shock you!

1. When Were Crocs Invented & By Who Was It invented?

To me, Crocs scream early 2010s. Every kid I knew was wearing them back then and they were all the rage everywhere. Colour me surprised when I found out that these things have been around and kicking for a good 20 years.

You heard me right, Crocs first came out in 2002.

Three guys in Colorado, Scott Seamans, Lyndon “Duke” Hanson, and George Boedecker, Jr. founded the Crocs company in 2001. The shoe was basically an ungraded version of a foam clog design developed by the Canadian brand Foam Creations.

In 2002, a year after founding the company, the first ever pair of Crocs, named the Beach, were launched at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Boat Show.

2. Why Was Crocs Invented?

Typically, when thinking of the boaters among us, I mentally separate them into two categories: there’s the boujee, bought-this-boat-with-my-trust-fund kind, and there’s the swashbuckling seafarer who lives for the adrenaline of the ocean kind.

I’ve never really pictured either of those people wearing Crocs.

But believe it or not, Crocs were actually developed as boating shoes!

If you’ve ever slipped on a pair of Crocs, sport mode activated, and thought, “huh, these have an insane grip,” now you know why. They were literally built to grip the deck and stop your friendly neighborhood boater from slipping overboard.

3. How To Stretch Out Crocs?

As far as I’m concerned, Crocs are actually magical. If you don’t believe me, get this:

You can actually change the size of your Crocs.

Ever bought a pair of shoes and cursed yourself for not getting a size larger? Well, you’d never have that concern again with a pair of Crocs.

Because of the special resin that they’re made of, if your Crocs ever feel a little too tight, you can just stretch ‘em out!

Pop them in a pot of boiling water and let them get all warm and loose. Then, slip on a pair of socks to protect your feet, and put your Crocs on as you usually would. Walk around for a bit until they’ve cooled completely, and viola! You now have a slightly larger pair of Crocs molded to your exact size.

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Now, what if you’re having the opposite problem? What if your Crocs are too small, or God forbid, if they’ve shrunk?

I’m not joking, Crocs can actually shrink. See, I know I just told you to boil them alive to make them bigger, but that’s only because you’re stretching them after. If Crocs are exposed to too high a heat level, they’ll actually shrink.

So if you’re looking to lessen the size of your shoe, pop them in the dishwasher, or maybe just leave them out in the sun on a hot day. With enough heat, they’ll shrivel right up to be nice and snug.

4. How Long Have Crocs Shoes Been Around?

While Crocs as we know them today were only born in 2002, the concept of the foam clog has been around for a while, and the clog itself for much longer.

Carved wooden clogs first originated in 1300s Europe, starting out as protective footwear in agricultural and mining settings. By the 1400s, clogs had become a fashionable shoe, which some Crocs-stans would argue is true to this day.

Even the foam clog wasn’t a concept that Crocs invented, though they can take credit for popularizing it.

Fashion is cyclical, though I know there are people who would ridicule me for even daring to call Crocs anything close to fashion. Eventually, another variation of the traditional clog will pop up, and maybe society will hate those too.

But Crocs, in some form or another, have been around for a long, long time.

5. How To Get Free Crocs For Healthcare Workers 2022

For the last three years, Crocs has hosted a giveaway during National Nurses Week in May. This past May they collaborated with the American healthcare apparel brand FIGS to give away 10,000 pairs of Crocs and FIGS scrubs to healthcare workers across the country.

The “Free Pair for Healthcare” campaign selects winners at random through a lucky draw system that any healthcare worker can enter themselves into on the Crocs website during the giveaway period.

Though this year’s campaign wrapped up in the summer, healthcare workers can still receive a 15% discount on their products by verifying their healthcare worker status on the Crocs site.

6. Are Crocs Made In China?

If you’ve ever wondered where your pair of Crocs came from before they became your go-to comfort shoe, you should know that Crocs are actually quite the globe trotter.

Crocs manufactures their shoes in Italy, Mexico, Bosnia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and yes, China.

Unless you’re checking the individual label on each pair of Crocs, there’s no knowing where they could have come from. Outlets sometimes stock models from a few different manufacturers, so the Crocs store is actually a little more cultured than one might think.

7. Why Do Crocs Have Holes In The Front?

Every pair of Crocs has 13 holes.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a giant men’s size 13, or the littlest baby pair of Crocs you can find, there’s going to be 13 holes on that shoe.

Surprisingly, it’s not all about aesthetics.

As we’ve established, Crocs were made as a practical boating shoe. So it only makes sense that every aspect of their design serves a purpose.

In this case, the holes help ventilate the shoe, letting out any excess moisture and keeping your Crocs nice and fresh.

No one wants a stinky shoe. Crocs make sure you never have one.

8. When Did Crocs Become Popular?

In 2008, Crocs became a household name. But it wasn’t really for a good reason.

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Around the world, the shoe brand made headlines as “the ugliest shoes ever.” Crocs’ stocks plummeted and they lost tons of money because of all the bad press they were getting.

But as a wise man once said; all publicity is good publicity.

If we look at any of the fashion trends of the past that have been deemed “ugly”, we can probably find a time when it was all the rage. Just think of the Y2K trend that’s only just releasing the chokehold it’s had on Gen Z for the last couple of years. Go back to 2010 and you’ll have teens swearing up and down that 2000s fashion is the ugliest thing they’ve ever seen.

One truth about fashion is that it’s cyclical. And with time, Crocs cycled their way into being cool again. Except this time, thanks to all the ire surrounding their initial release, everyone knew what Crocs were.

So in the mid-2010s, the world was graced with a Crocs renaissance that gave us the Balenciaga Platform Crocs, and saw over 700 million pairs of Crocs sold worldwide.

9. Why Are Crocs Popular

Despite their once controversial reputation as the world’s ugliest shoe, the appeal of the Croc is a simple one:

Crocs are insanely comfortable.

I’m not going to deny that shoes are quite ugly, I’m not blind. But they’re so practical!

Crocs are water-proof, slip-proof, come in fun colors, and you can add as many Jibbitz shoe charms as your heart desires (or like, 13, but still).

It’s undeniable that a lot of people bought Crocs because it was a meme. They’re completely goofy to look at, but once you try on a pair “as a joke” you’re not going to be able to deny the sheer utility of the foam clog.

10. Who Started The Crocs Trend?

Although Crocs made their initial high-fashion debut in Christopher Kane’s Spring/Summer collection back in 2017, followed up with the (yes, I’m mentioning them again) Balenciaga Platform Crocs, the shoes didn’t really find their way into everyone’s house again until the pandemic hit, and every celebrity was rocking a pair of Crocs.

In 2021, in the midst of the longest time-out session the world had ever seen, Crocs emerged as the shoe-to-wear to be on trend. Out of seemingly nowhere, the likes of supermodels Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber were sporting Crocs. And celebrities like Post Malone and Justin Bieber were releasing collaborations with the brand.

Crocs took over the internet, and Gen Z bought into it like crazy.

In 2021 alone, Crocs stock went up by 140%. Somehow, a shoe brand that collaborated with KFC was reselling for thousands of dollars.

11. How Many Crocs Have Been Sold

The United States of America was recorded to have a population of 331.9 million people in 2021.

Crocs is reported to have sold over 700 million pairs of shoes world wide.

Every American citizen could own two pairs of Crocs, and still have over 40 million to spare.

If that’s not a good enough description for you, here’s this:

There are roughly 1.5 billion cows on Earth. If each cow wore a pair of Crocs, assuming that they only wore them on their hind legs, half the cows on planet Earth could own a pair of Crocs.

12. How Long Do Crocs Last?

The average pair of Crocs is going to stay robust for about 3 to 5 years, if you’re wearing them everyday. If you’re only rocking them occasionally, they’ll last you a fair bit longer.

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With proper care, a pair of Crocs could last you up to ten years. And if you only wore them indoors, you could theoretically extend their lifespan exponentially.

So technically speaking, if you had a pair of Crocs that you kept indoors, barely used, and cared for everyday, you could have a new family heirloom to pass down through the generations.

Realistically, you’ll get a little more of a couple years of use out of them before you’d want an upgrade anyway.

13. Why Do Nurses Wear Crocs?

Why do nurses wear Crocs?

Nurses are always on their feet. When your job requires you to run around and look after the wellbeing of others the whole day, you kind of want your footwear to not be a pain to have on.

The thing is, there’s a few more requirements than just “comfortable” for a healthcare professional’s attire. The typical healthcare center requires their employees to don slip-proof, and spill-proof shoes. That means a shoe with good grip that isn’t going to absorb any of the hazardous bodily fluids a nurse is often exposed to.

Crocs happen to be exactly that.

You see, Crocs are made of an exclusive, patented foam called Croslite. And when I say exclusive, I mean that Crocs are the only shoe on planet Earth that can use Croslite.

Now, Croslite isn’t just your run-of-the-mill rubber or plastic. It’s something called a closed-cell resin, which usually just means that it doesn’t absorb water and doesn’t compress as easily as an open-cell would. Unfortunately, because it has so little give, closed-cell foams can be kind of uncomfortable to wear.

The magic of Crocs’ patented Croslite foam is that it has all the light softness of an open-cell, with all the water-resistant features of a closed-cell. So it’s both comfortable, durable, and hygienic because it’s not going around absorbing every suspicious liquid that you step in.

So it’s really no surprise that nurses love Crocs. Especially following a pandemic where they had to sanitize all their attire, all the time.

Unfortunately, while the typical pair of Crocs, holes and all, are a little too exposed for a healthcare professional, Crocs have plenty of fully covered models that suit a nurse just fine.

14. Why Do Podiatrists Recommend Crocs?

For all the same reasons that a nurse would reach for a pair of Crocs, podiatrists say that the average person can too.

Crocs are well-ventilated and suitable for wide feet. Plus, they have great arch support.

This isn’t to say that you should be wearing your crocs all day, everyday. Despite the legendary “sport mode” of crocs, podiatrists recommend reaching for a more appropriate, higher support shoe for any heavy-lifting.

But for the days where you don’t have anything too strenuous planned, the doctors say Crocs are a-okay!

15. Should Crocs Be Worn With Socks?

Although socks and sandals are considered to be one of the cardinal sins, socks and crocs are subjected to no such fate. In short, yes, you can wear socks with your crocs.

If it’s a chilly day and your light and airy crocs are feeling a little too light and airy, just opt for a pair of fuzzy socks underneath!

At the end of the day, it’s a matter of personal preference. Plus, if you were that worried about appearances to begin with, you probably wouldn’t be wearing a pair of Crocs.

To Conclude

There’s an infinite amount of information in this world. While I can never dream of knowing everything about everything, I can at least say that I know a little bit more about Crocs than the average Joe.

Now you do too.

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