June 01, 2011

As Clarks' profits reach an all-time high, Alexa Chung and pals fly the flag for granny chic in socks and sandals

Remember those sensible sandals your mother used to make you wear? In boring navy blue or brown leather, the thick-strapped, wide-soled monstrosities plagued our school days.
My own mother was – and still is – adamant that little girls need only two pairs of footwear: a well-fitting pair of closed-toe shoes for winter and a buckle-up sandal for summer. If both were from Clarks, all the better.
No matter that all I wanted was a pair of sky blue jellies. I was frogmarched past Chelsea Girl and into Clarks, where I would be bought the dreaded sensible sandal that would have to see me through until September.
Granny chic: Alexa Chung is at the forefront of the current fashion for sensible sandals
Granny chic: Alexa Chung is at the forefront of the current fashion for sensible sandals
Granny chic: Alexa Chung is at the forefront of the granny sandal trend

The rest of the summer would be spent trying to scuff them enough that they were no longer fit for wear – but the tenacious brutes were practically indestructible.
Not for my childhood the glittery ballet pumps or colourful Converse young children have in their extensive shoe collections today.

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So isn’t it ironic - and more than a little bit scary - that while today’s precocious tweens totter along prematurely in their miniature high heels or sequined pumps, us fully grown followers of fashion are turning back to those sensible sandals – and the sensible shops - of our own childhoods.
Geek chic: Florence Welch embraces the socks with sandals trend
Maverick: Chloe Sevigny rocked the geek chic look back in 2009 at the Coachella music festival
Socks appeal: Maverick fashionistas Florence Welch and Chloe Sevigny, right, have been rocking granny chic at music festivals for the past two summers

Alexa Chung deserves to be given shares in Clarks for her devotion to the granny sandal. Quirky singer Florence Welch is a fan, while Chloe Sevigny packed hers for Coachella festival.
Move over Jimmy Choo. The buckle-up granny sandal has the fashion world in its grip.
Formerly the preserve of timid librarians, support-tight wearing church volunteers or six-year olds, the granny sandal has gone mainstream.
And as its mothership Clarks yesterday reported record profits – hitting £100million for the first time since being established in 1825 – the Somerset-born label can also lay claim to having found enviable – if accidental - cachet among our maverick style leaders.
Fashion forward: Deborah, aged six - 'I may be smiling, but inside I am plotting ways to ditch my brown Clarks sandals'
Fashion forward: Deborah, aged six - 'I may be smiling, but inside I am plotting ways to ditch my brown Clarks sandals'

In a moment of great serendipity that even Clarks could not have predicted, the cool crowd have adopted the school sandal as their own, propelling it from geek chic to, well, just chic.
Sales of Clarks' £45 Kestrel Soar - identical to the tan sandal I wore as a six-year-old schoolgirl - have rocketed, and pairs of the tan buckle-up have even found their way into the closets of trend ambassador Alexa Chung and Florence Welch.
And in a stroke of delicious irony, having mocked their elders for years for committing the sartorial sin of pairing their granny sandals (we should point out here that grannies just call them 'sandals') with socks, the in-crowd is now adopting the socks and sandals trend themselves.
This isn't an overt or ostentatious trend though. The buckle-up's return has been by stealth - the kind of trend that creeps up unnoticed.
First your coolest friend wears a pair and you wonder if she’s had a secret bunion operation, or a lobotomy in the part of her brain responsible for fashion choices.
Then you spot the shoes on the most avant-garde of trendsetting celebrities.
Before long, you realise it’s not they who are uncool. It’s YOU.
And now that the granny sandal has reached beyond the realm of the blue-rinse brigade and into mainstream fashion, its ubiquity is staggering.
For your own fix of geek chic, Clarks is the original and still the best – you know the things will last, after all – but Kurt Geiger and Office have their own versions (Alexa loves the £75 patent Lemur style from KG), while Office's £58 Silas ('£58 for a pair of sandals?', I can hear my mother say) are classic granny chic.
U.S. site mysaltwatersandals.com is the online Mecca for granny sandals, and is where Alexa Chung bought her navy blue sandals for just $34.95 (£21).
Pick up a pair, pop on some socks and make your mothers proud.
Clarks' Kestrel Soar has proved a hit this season: Alexa Chung and Florence Welch both own a pair
Buckle up: Clarks' Shingle sandal in tan, £49.99
Buckle up! Left, Clarks' Kestrel Soar sandal, £45, has already found its way into the wardrobes of Florence Welch and Alexa Chung. Right, Clarks' £49.99 Shingle

The £21 saltwater sandal from mysaltwatersandals.com
The Kurt Geiger Marley, £45
Geek chic: Alexa's sandal by mysaltwatersandals.com; Kurt Geiger's Marley, £45
Enlarge  
  ASOS Flutter in tan, £20
Enlarge 
  Topshop tan strappy sandals, £22
Browned off: Asos' flutter, £20, and Topshop's tan strappy sandal, £20

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