Pikachu, Jigglypuff and Gengar Crocs are coming, from $54.99
Crocs is adding three new Pokemon designs to its range, plus a Poke Ball clog. Prices run from $54.99 to $84.99, and no release date has been announced.
Crocs is making more Pokemon shoes. Nintendo Life reports three new designs are on the way, built around Pikachu, Jigglypuff and Gengar, with a Poke Ball clog also announced.
Here is what has been given so far.
| Design | Price |
|---|---|
| Pikachu, adult, with lightning bolts | $79.99 |
| Gengar, adult, ghostly design | $79.99 |
| Jigglypuff platform clog, with musical notes | $84.99 |
| Pikachu, kids | $54.99 |
| Poke Ball clog | No price given |
Those are United States prices. The report says other regions get the equivalent in their own currency, which normally means a similar number rather than a straight conversion.
No release date has been announced. Until Crocs says one, treat any date you see as a guess.
What a platform clog is
The Jigglypuff pair costs $5 more than the others because it is a platform version. A platform clog is the same shoe on a thick raised sole, so you stand a couple of inches higher.
Pairing that with Jigglypuff is a decent joke. It is the round pink one that sings people to sleep, and it gets the tallest shoe in the range.
Why these three Pokemon
All three come from the first games, and all three are recognisable to someone who has never played one. That is the entire logic of a collaboration like this.
Pikachu sells to everyone. Gengar sells to people who want something that does not look like children's merchandise, which is a real and growing part of the Pokemon shopper base. Jigglypuff is the nostalgia pick, familiar to anyone who watched the cartoon in the nineties or played the Super Smash Bros. games.
Crocs and Pokemon have worked together before, so this is an expansion of a range rather than a first attempt. Ranges that get extended are ranges that sold.
The anniversary pattern
This lands in the middle of a year of Pokemon collaborations. There have been doughnuts, cameras and clothing, all inside a few weeks.
The thread running through them is ordinary objects that people carry in public. A plush sits on a shelf. Shoes go outside, get seen, and get photographed. For a franchise turning 30 and trying to stay in front of adults who grew up with it, that is worth more than another shelf item.
Charm sockets help too. Crocs shoes have holes across the top that take small clip-in charms, and character charms sell separately at a low price. It is a cheap way to keep buying into a shoe you already own. The report does not say whether Pokemon charms are part of this announcement.
Worth waiting to see
Three things are still open. Which sizes each design comes in, since a kids-only or adults-only run changes who can actually buy it. Where they sell, because a Crocs website exclusive behaves differently from a general retail launch. And how limited the run is.
Collaboration shoes tend to sell out on the first day and reappear at a markup within hours. If you want a pair to wear rather than resell, the thing to find out is the on-sale date, and that is the one detail nobody has published yet.