The Birkenstock Dilemma

Birkenstocks, ladies. Yea or Nay?

Here's the heart of the matter as far as I am concerned. Birkenstoks are now plotting world dominance. They have become a trend, you see. A trendy trend, that all kinds of celebs have started following, all kinds of major design houses started producing, and therefore all kind of peons started replicating.

Here are the designer iterations:

And some more, with FUR, from Celine:

None of this, by the by, is news. Celine's Birkenstocks are a year old. A year ago glossies and various fashion blogs started running stories with the excited titles like "BIRKENSTOCKS ARE BACK!?!. Then winter came and we forgot. But as soon as the thermometer started climbing the Birklenstock headlines (and, yes, the actual shoes) started coming out of the woodwork again. To wit:

Runways:

Celebs:

Of course the 90s were the last time Birkenstocks were cool. That's when the shot below was taken and the time I acquired my one and only pair (yes, I have one. I haven't worn them in years).

Iconic, sure, but not so much because of the footwear.

Why is this comfort-shoe an issue, ye may ask?

Precisely because the Bircklenstock IS a comfort shoe - and looks it. You can totally see it paired with hairy toes, hairy armpits, and a wafting scent of pachouli. Or  topping off a look of an all natural fiber tent dress, undyed hair, and too many advanced degrees, Cambridge styles. It is a shoe for people who believe that looking put together is some kind of a moral sin.  The Birkenstocks' home habitat is among the crunchy layers of society - hippie, not hip.

Any attempt to hippifie them needs to be attempted with extreme care. Only the Kate Mosses of this world can take a shoe so naturally ugly (that sole with its color and texture imitating dirt? Why?), so obviously and dreadfully COMFORTABLE (the horror!) over the divide and into something semi-stylish. All others are more likely to be brought down HARD by it, not the other way around.

Yesterday's  NYMag ran a mini-poll of 13 'taste makers' on the subject of the divisive Birkenstock. Most bleated like so many braindead sheep about the wonders of the trend. One, Leandra Medine, stood out.  Medine, who blogs at her influential Man Repeller site, offered thoughtful commentary, as she is want to do.

Here, ladies, check out her awesome answers:

Is there a summer trend you’d like to go away? I feel like Birkenstocks have become unusually quotidian. I’m trying not to use the word basic. How so? The problem when a piece like Birkenstocks becomes so trendy after being so “basic” (and they actually are basic, like, the fundamentals of someone’s wardrobe) [is that] they’re so easily co-opted, so when they start to be worn the wrong way, they start to be ruined for everyone. 

Is there a right way to wear them? Yeah, I think you need to wear them like you own a surfboard, with low-slung board shorts and a crop top, and some, like, reflective-lens sunglasses and messy hair, and look around and pretend like you don’t give a shit, or you actually you don’t give a shit.

I subscribe to every word. Stay away, ladies. If I catch one of you wearing these outside the allotted space of no-care (home/beach) I swear I will come after you.