Giant step up the charts

It’s been a rollercoaster ride for the maker of the world’s ugliest shoe, which launched in 2002, then rode a surge of popularity to hit a mighty valuation back in 2007, before overexpanding and crashing to near oblivion when the financial crisis struck and the market was flooded with copycat versions at much lower prices.

For a while its survival was in doubt, and it’s taken a decade to recover, but it had a great year in 2020, selling more than 69-million pairs of shoes.

It is unclear how much of this can be attributed to the loss of all sense of taste that is associated with Covid-19. But it has certainly benefited from a year in which comfort has triumphed over style, pyjamas have become a viable form of workwear, and working from home has meant that a formal shoe, let alone a high heel, has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Sales of dress footwear tanked by 50% in the US in 2020, while the dubious category of mules and clogs was up by more than 30%.

Crocs’ share price is up around 650% in the year, as consumers piled into the market for something that was easy to clean, cementing their long popularity with health-care workers and others whose jobs entail long periods on their feet.

Keepers of more traditional sartorial standards will have had a long year of raising eyebrows at what is becoming acceptable, and it would certainly have been hard to imagine the Duke of Edinburgh, while he was still up and about, being spotted in a pyjama suit and a pair of Crocs.

Crocs’ share price went up 650% as consumers piled into the market for easy footwear