When you think about it – the rise of Crocs seems almost impossible. Beloved by cooks, nurses, waiters, and everybody who had to be on their feet for a long time – the pure manifestation of ugliness has expanded from a maker of waterproof footwear for boat lovers to the global brand with shops stretching from New York to London and Tokyo.

People were fascinating by this ugliness and celebrated it by parading it public and buying more. The company once to explore this massive phenomenon run an advertisement in Vanity Fair with a tagline: “Ugly can be beautiful.” Unfortunately – ugly can’t be beautiful and profitable. Last year Crocs has reported loss of $185.1 million and shredded 2,000 jobs. So what made the company a victim of its own success?

Firstly, Crocs seems to have forgotten about building their products with planned obsolescence. The thing is that the new Canadian technology that they were using to make lightweight, bacteria resistant foam made the footwear virtually indestructible. So there was almost never a time when you would need to replace your crocs. Unless you wanted a different color, but you could paint them anyway!

Combine that with the worldwide recession, falling demand and Crocs going out of fashion and you get a commercial disaster. But is it the end for the famous ugliness?

We certainly think it’s not. The new CEO, John Duerden seems to have a plan in place. Back to the basics and its core market of chefs, nurses and those who bought the shoes in the early days are high in the agenda. We are sure to be seeing these around for years to come, just not at the same wide scale as before. The Croc(s) needs to go on a diet and slim down.