Flip flops...are the shoe...of the summer...?
Maybe it's time to lean into useful purchases instead of trendy purchases.
Did you see the GQ post about Bradley Cooper wearing flip flops that dropped last week? And a week before that, the concise shopping guide for flip flops, also posted by GQ? Yeah.
Look, I want to start by saying a few things:
I respect both of the writers of the articles I’ve linked, Murray Clark and Gerald Ortiz. Both have written articles that I’ve loved and enjoyed. This is not a critique of them at all.
GQ has become a strange place. Some articles are wonderful and incredible, but some…fall flat. This isn’t a critique of the entity, more an observation that the times have changed. I miss reading interesting write ups that made me think and molded my idea of menswear. I understand that the $ comes from shopping guides and brand deals and I can respect the hustle.
The % of men that will cater their whole style to whatever is deemed to be ‘on trend’ are lazy, uninspired, and all-around boring people. If you start wearing flip flops this year because GQ told you to, the issue isn’t GQ, it’s you.
With that out of the way, I’d love to poke a bit at this trend and what it means for us as readers and consumers to be swayed by what a big ole’ entity will try to sell you.
Let’s begin.
I’m an immigrant. My mom has been wearing flip flops for as long as I can remember, literally her whole life. In our house they were called chanclas, and they were both a shoe to be worn and a weapon to be wielded when the time came to it. She would often go to Old Navy and purchase those $1 flip flops whenever the summer promotional would come around; we would also reap the benefits of her buying us a few colors as well. In terms of the flip-flop trend, my mom’s been about that life for decades. Can you imagine what her response would be today, if I told her that the shoes she’s worn for decades are now suddenly on trend???
…
Come on man.
At what point do we have to admit that not everything has a trend cycle, that sometime things just have a permanent level of usefulness?
Let me give you a different offering — moccasins. Specifically the wasp-y Sperry’s / LL Bean styles that older white men with healthy 401k’s have worn sockless for decades. I recently bought myself a pair after rejecting the notion that these were exclusively for older white guys. My main motivating factors were (1) I’m a stay at home dad that needs something I can just throw on (2) that would look appropriate in both a playground and a restaurant (3) and wouldn’t look out of place with shorts / pants — these checked-off every single item. After a quick few clicks, the LL Bean moccasins arrived at my house and I’ve worn them almost every day since.
Are moccasins having a moment now? Yes. Did I buy them because they were having a moment? No. I bought them because they were useful, and they fit the needs I had at the time. I’m sure Birks could have fit the bill too, but I didn’t think they’d dress up as nice. I almost opted for loafers, but I felt bad about thrashing about some of those nicer examples. These Mocs won me over because they checked off the boxes, and because they would serve their purpose as a useful pair of shoes. They were a practical purchase, not a trendy purchase — I know this because at this point I’m so locked-in to these that even if the trend phases out, I’m going to buy myself a new pair of these every single summer until the day that I die. Amen.
I think flip-flops are in the same similar vein. They’re (1) easy to throw on and (2) look appropriate [almost] everywhere and (3) can be worn with shorts / pants. I don’t think the main factor for buying a pair should be because they’re on trend, it should be because they’re useful. They serve their purpose well, and it’s a purpose that arrives every summer and departs every fall.
I just don’t think we need to lie to ourselves about this: flip flops are not for #fashion, they’re for #purpose. We wear them because they make sense, not because they look good. It’s because if I need an iced coffee, throwing these on is much easier than unlacing + tying up a pair of Rick Owens sneakers. Don’t pretend that you’re going to look hot in flip flops with your gross feet out in the open; Lord knows most guys are too self-conscious to get a pedicure in the first place.
The Row makes a flip flop for $690. Havaianas makes a similar color way that is currently on sale for $11.18, or roughly 62 times cheaper. Which do you think leans better towards the flip flop trend? Which do you think leans better towards usefulness?
I can’t imagine spending that much money on something that is meant to be worn to beaches and bbq’s — why not cop a few pairs of Havaianas and now you have going out money? More sandals and more beer — a win-win for all. But I think part of the issue with things being on-trend is that the big #FASHION companies feel a need to make a version of said item to play into the trend cycle, hoping that their customers are so scared of being seen as poor that they’ll dish out $690 to protect their reputation + take fit pics that they can then tag The Row on.
“Oh but they’re made better” — Not 62 times better!!! There’s no shot that your fancy flip flips will outlive the immigrant-mom-backed chanclas brand that was formed in 1962, 44 years before The Row would be formed!!! They’re been making flip flops longer than the Olsen twins have been alive!!! Respect the legacy brand!!! Respect the quality!!! Respect the duality!!!
I think this is a pattern we see over and over, and it’s one we should do our best to reject. Schotts has been making top-tier leather jackets since 1913 for about ~$500 today, and yet the Hedi-era YSL leather jackets cost 10x as much for nowhere near as good quality. Jeans were once a tried & true workwear staple made by the likes of Levi’s and Lee to be worn well and now you find brands like Balenciaga making versions so wife legged you could use them to smuggle your kids into amusement parks for free. And don’t even go further down the workwear line — do you know how difficult it was to explain to my 60 year old father who worked in carpentry his whole life that people were buying used Carhartt jackets with stains on them for upwards of $200? That high fashion brands were making versions that were ‘luxurious’ for upwards of $1,000? I think he almost had a stroke. And I don’t blame him, at a certain point we have to recognize that the never-ending trend cycle of what is deemed cool right now makes the fashion machine churn out dozens of versions of products that ultimately aren’t as useful, and don’t have lasting power or influence when compared to their original influences. In this day and age, no one needs high fashion flip flops, they just need some Havaianas and a cold Miller High Life.
Where does this leave us?
Well, at a crossroads. Because you have a tough choice to make now:
Are you going to wear flip-flops because GQ told you to?
Are you going to wear flip-flops because they’re a practical summer option?
And if you do the second, are you going to apologize to your aging parents for never truly seeing that they had prophetic insight to the trend cycle of summer 2025?
The former makes you an inspired loser; the latter will probably heal some generational trauma, or at the very least make it so you can wear flip flops this summer without getting roasted.
In the spirit of not being a hater, I do want to say that the GQ list that was mentioned above was actually really, really good: click here to see it. If you are going to spend some money on flip flops, this is a great starting point. Alternatively, Jake Woolf just quite literally dropped a list of summer sandals that expands the offering beyond flip flops. I can’t recommend any flip flops as I’m a hater of them in every sense of the word, but I’d love to sway you into some Mocs, if that’s your sort of thing.
Apart from that, I pray you can wear flip flops (or sandals or moccasins or whatever) this summer without the pressure of being trendy. God knows that the real fits come out in the fall anyways, summer is a good excuse to let loose and wear whatever feels good + keeps your feet cool.
This just in, I think jeans are going to be big this fall!