Crocs' debut sneaker, the Juniper, is nothing like I expected.
In fact, the shoe, designed by Crocs’ Pollex creative director Salehe Bembury, is almost the complete opposite to what I had in mind when Bembury revealed that he’d be spearheading the Colorado-based footwear label’s foray into the world of sneakers late last year.
First things first, Crocs' Juniper shoe isn’t made of the foam (or Croslite, for the heads) used for Crocs' trademark clogs and secondly, but perhaps most pertinently, Crocs’ first sneaker isn’t a wipeable slip-on either.
Actually, to put it bluntly: Crocs’ Juniper sneaker isn’t very Croc-y at all. At least, not by the definition of Crocs as you once knew them.
The only characteristic of Crocs Juniper sneaker that resembles a classic Croc by the old definition (i.e. bulbous clog) are the ventilation holes on the toe, and even they arrive about ten-times smaller than we’ve become accustomed to on the footwear brand's archetypal Classic Clog.
I mean, if it weren’t for the fact that the Juniper has Crocs branding on both the tongue and the hangtag (as well as on the inside on the shoe), you’d be forgiven for thinking that these sneakers were a silhouette envisioned by another wildly outlandish sneaker label.
Though the Juniper may not be very Crocs-like in a traditional sense, the sneaker is the sort of wavy, familiar-but-not product that we’ve come to expect of footwear design veteran Bembury, who’s renowned for his adventurous design aesthetic when it comes to the world of sneakers.
Take Bembury's collaborative Moncler Trailgrip shoe, for instance, which infused an ordinary hiking sneaker with a trippy 3D pattern or Bembury’s Clarks collaboration that resulted in the British footwear label’s most psychedelic shoe since the Madchester era.
Crocs' Juniper sneaker, which is yet to be given an official release date, is the first in a long list of sneakers expected to come off of the Crocs conveyor belt in 2024, as the brand best known for clogs expands its purview to new realms of stylish, progressive footwear.
And, truth is, if anyone was ever going to make Crocs a bonafide sneaker brand, it’s Bembury.
