THE ROW'S $900 JELLY SANDALS KEEP BREAKING

Who woulda thunk it?

The Row's PVC Mara sandals. Photo: The Row.

Jellies played an inordinately large (and some might say tragic) role in my early life. My favorites were a clear pair of sandals decorated with the Family Circus’ Billy on either foot strap. It was in this crystalline footwear that I ran out of our family den one afternoon to tell my parents about something – I can’t recall precisely what – fascinating I’d just seen on TV. At that moment, the front edge of one shoe clipped the threshold demarcating the hallway. I lost my balance and tripped face-first into a large planter composed of light blue wooden slats. The impact swiftly sliced my entire bottom lip clean open with a vertical slash, deflating it like a week-old balloon, blood pouring down the front of my body from a gaping hole. A trip to the hospital and several stitches while restrained in a mini straightjacket (do they still use those on five-year-olds?) solved that. The sandals were eventually split up, one forever lost to the waves of Lake Michigan during a summer beach day. The lip scar has stuck around.

Was that recitation over-indulgent? Probably. But I’m not about to pass up synergy between childhood trauma and a fashion topic I’m eager to cover. Suffice it to say that jellies hold more than their fair share of nostalgia for anyone whose age has at least a three in front of it. And if fashion loves anything, it’s nostalgia. The ‘90s were really about the ‘70s, the ‘80s were really about the ‘40s, the ‘70s were really about the ‘30s, and so on. It isn’t surprising that clear footwear has made a return now that fashion is so actively mining the 20th century’s last decade. I’m certainly not immune to the charm of a throwback, but when The Row, one of the most revered brands in the game, sent its latticed Mara version of the children’s department staple down the runway for Pre-Fall 2024, I was flummoxed.

The Mara flat in clear PVC. Photo: The Row.

One customer saw their Mara flats splinter after only five wears. Photo: TikTok/oliviasshoppingdiary.

Jelly shoes are a novelty and a relatively inexpensive one at that. At least, usually. But questions must be asked when one is being charged nearly a grand for shoes made from a material that only costs a few dollars at the hardware store (and no, Italian labor costs do not make up the difference) – particularly when word has trickled out over the last few weeks that excited new Mara flat owners have had their shoes break – even in as few as five wears.

In a way, the Mara flat feels like a natural evolution of The Row’s footwear lineup. Their glove-like fit and so-ugly-it’s-almost-good aesthetic are not unrelated to the mesh sock shoes the Olsen sisters made into a widely copied star of their brand. Minimalist labels tend to start making extremely odd things after enough time has passed as if they suddenly looked up and asked what life there was beyond peddling black pants. The results are rarely good.

The extortionate price of $890 inherently makes the Mara flats a rip-off, but that they’ve repeatedly broken after light use makes the entire proposition unacceptable. Of course, no mainstream publications are discussing the issue after they spent considerable word count hyping the transparent style up to readers. I was unable to verify reports that The Row quietly switched manufacturers as a result of so many defective pairs, but it does seem they’ve reimbursed unhappy customers.

It appears the Mara flats all potentially share the same structural weak points. Photo: TikTok/fineanddandi.

I do understand that fashion is fun and novelty can be a facet of that fun. It need not always be so serious and as Marc Jacobs so often rightfully points out, no one needs any of this stuff. What concerns me is an industry perfectly content with wastefulness and promoting things any sensible person can see are disposable. Disposability was once the opposite of luxury. Decades ago, you didn’t see patrons casually tossing off their Sergio Rossi or Geoffrey Beene or Hermès. Those designs were meant to be cherished forever. They may not have been necessary, but they still held significance and were valued far beyond any trend. Why is it now acceptable to have a fast fashion philosophy bleed into everything? And why does no one say as much? Is the truth so terrible? Is it so wrong to call something what it is?

I’d bet any amount of money that that fateful jelly of mine is still kickin’ somewhere.