-->

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

The Flip-Flop/Thong


   A Unisex Shoe  


My Feminine Thong "Flip-Flop" Collection 
The first time I saw a rubber Flip-Flop I was enthralled. My opinion: it was a feminine shoe and so different from my converse high-top sneakers. Not a shoe a boy/man would ever wear. 

There were few options for boys/men in footwear and I have always been taken by the variety that women have. Flip-Flops embodied something new and was adopted immediately as a feminine sandal alternative. 

Here is an interesting article on "Here's how those sandals really affect your posture, your knees and more." from the Huffpost - Life Science.  

There were several parts of my adolescent thinking that were all wrong. First the Flip-Flop was not new according to Wikipedia: 
Thong sandals have been worn for thousands of years, dating back to pictures of them in ancient Egyptian murals from 4,000 BC. A pair found in Europe was made of papyrus leaves and dated to be approximately 1,500 years old. 
Second, the Flip-Flop has evolved into unisex footwear to the extend that it is a predominant  warm climate foot item. On any day at my local mall (while people watching), I would see a very high percentage or people wearing a variation of the Flip-Flop; both male and female.  If there is an official shoe for Florida, it is the Flip-Flop. It even has its own designated day - NATIONAL FLIP FLOP DAY – Second Friday in June

I found this interesting new concept in unisex shoes: The World’s First Flip-Shoe. I don't know if these will catch on. They are being presented as a replacement for the ever present Flip-Flop and shown on their web site as unisex. I think that is a stretch given its resemblance to the ballet flat. However, who would have thought that the traditional Flip-Flop would become universally accepted.  I did not.  












1 comment:

  1. We went to see Jimmy Buffett the other night. He came on wearing his Hawaiian shirt, shorts and flip flops and at the end of the show gave his flip flops to someone in the first row. I thought this was a nice gesture. Good fun show.

    ReplyDelete