Sanuk’s Tube Flops can Actually Be Cool

I’m going to be completely open-minded about this because although Sanuk’s Tube Flop looks like it’s asking to be scrutinized, it is undeniably a unique product. Sanuk was the first company to market their loafer-style shoes as NOT shoes BUT sandals, and that bit of creative genius from Sanuk was a huge business and marketing success.

Clicking on this picture will take you to where you can buy Sanuk footwear

So what about their latest invention, the Tube Flop? It didn’t receive as warm a welcome as their first product, that’s for sure. Maybe it has to do with the general consensus that sandals with socks is a total fashion faux pas, maybe wearing them makes you look confused about whether you’re really feeling hot or cold, or maybe because it looks like this:

I mean, was this old curtain design one of the top choices for sock prints, really?

They also come in plain black, stripes, and in the fun, bright colors above, but did they really have to use mesh fabric for the socks? (Look closer at the picture).

It seems making the sandal + sock combination look cool wasn’t enough of a challenge for Sanuk so they decided to add other fashion crimes into the mix to make it more um, interesting.

Even though these tube flops seem like they won’t catch on with the public as well as the Sanuk Sidewalk Surfers did, we’ve got to hand it to Sanuk for thinking out of the box. They’ve already gotten people talking about it (although they’re talking more about how bad it looks than anything else), they already have the video ad campaign filled with hot chicks, so all they really need to do is add a few tweaks here and there to make the product more appealing.

The first thing they could do is get rid of the gold chevron print and get more cool prints. They did it for the Sidewalk Surfers, so why not for the tube flops? They could also try detaching the sock from the flip flop because (1) it would make cleaning them easier and (2) I don’t even know why they thought of permanently attaching the socks.

Thirdly, if Sanuk’s going for fun and funk, then perhaps they can take it a step further and go in the direction of totally funky Japanese-slash-ballerina fashion. They could make the socks really baggy, out of cable knit material, or in pretty pastel colors:

Sanuk Tube Flop sock ideas

They could also get rid of the ugly, shiny plastic flipflop and use better-looking rubber flipflops.

Oh and even though Sanuk founder Jeff Kelley said in a Transworld Business interview that he didn’t want the tube flop to become a “teeny bopper, 12-year-old item”, I have to disagree with him and say that tube flops should come in kids sizes. If there’s anyone who would look cute in tube flops, it would be kids.

Do you think Sanuk’s Tube Flops can actually be cool? Purchase them for $29.95 at Zappos.com.