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Collecting, loving, buying and even wearing sneakers is different now than it’s ever been before. At the end of 2019, we noted that everyone wanted to be a sneakerhead in our annual end-of-year list. In 2020, that hasn’t really changed but so much else has. Although sneaker collecting has long been trending towards a digital pastime with online raffles, Instagram flexes and resell sites like StockX and GOAT taking the place of campouts, meet-ups and conventions, this year forced the “game” even further in that direction owing to sweeping changes necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic. Beginning-of-year prediction lists? Rip ‘em up. The Olympic Games, an annual innovation summit for the world’s biggest footwear brands? Postponed until 2021. Release dates? More flexible, fluid and likely to be pushed back than ever before.
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, media images of health care workers caring for COVID-19 patients provided some of the first glimpses into the devastating impacts of the global crisis.
Executives at Crocs not only saw those stressed, overwhelmed frontline workers, but also started getting requests from them for shoes to keep them going during the long hours. The company realized it had an opportunity to offer a little kindness and comfort to a group of loyal customers at a particularly challenging time. Crocs came up with an ambitious idea: to give away 10,000 pairs of shoes every day to people working on the front lines of the COVID-19 epidemic.