ON THE ROAD, AGAIN

Flip-flops are a privilege, not a right. ~ Michael Bastian  

People are journeying once again, even to Disneyland which opened on Apr 30. Finally, folks have begun responding to our homes’ pleas “Why are you still here?” We voyagers are cashing in on multi-months’ worth of pent-up demand to go someplace, anyplace away from our residences.

In early March we flew to Maui for some beach time. The plane was at most one-third full; no one was in a loathed middle seat. Several weeks later on our return the plane was at least three-quarters full, including middle seats. More of us are on the road again, just like Willie Nelson. 

The covid pandemic has been a catastrophe for the leisure and hospitality industry, especially airlines. The International Air Transport Association called 2020 the worst year in history for airline passenger demand. Are Wilbur and Orville rolling in their graves? Perhaps. International air passenger demand in 2020 was 75.6% below 2019 levels; domestic demand was down 48.8%.

Places like Hawaii where tourism is a paramount economic activity were particularly hard hit. Tourism accounts for over 20% of its state GDP. Last October, more than 6 months into the pandemic, the number of people flying to Hawaii remained down more than 90% from a year before. Tourism-related tax revenues dropped 90% year-over-year in May 2020. Ouch.

The travel tides seem to be turning, fortunately for airlines, hotels and tourists. And guess what that means, increasing use of and demand for flip-flops. Oh yeah.

    For me, flip-flops and travel are very closely related. So, in the spirit of these newly-traveling times here’s what I learned about the soul of these no-heeled, single-strapped sandals, like those shown above in a rainbow-like colors.

First, they’re hardly new. In America the expression “flip-flop” became popular by the early 1960s. But according to Wikipedia, they’ve been worn around the globe for thousands of years. When you wanted to “travel” (meaning walk without damaging your feet), covering your soles was important. Simply chanting meditations for your soles didn’t work, sandals really safeguarded them.

Egyptian murals from around 4000 BC showed people wearing them. A pair of 1500 year-old sandals was found in Europe. Ancient Greeks and Romans wore primordial versions of flip-flops. Such sandals were made from a variety of local materials including papyrus and palm leaves (Egypt and beyond), rawhide (the Maasai people, near what’s now South Sudan), wood (India), rice straw (China and Japan), sisal leaves (South America) and yucca (Mexico).

Flip-flops are our planet’s most-used shoe. About 3 billion flip flops are produced worldwide each year. They are the #1 shoe in China, #1 in India, #1 in Africa and #1 in Hawaii, which together represent 53% of Earth’s entire population.

Given the global use of flip-flops, they’re called many names. The chart below shows 18 different designations that folks from Kihei to Cape Town use to describe their sandals. What do you call them?

     Names of no-heeled, single-strapped sandals 

In America	In the Rest of the World
Flip-flops, thongs, go-aheads, slippers, shower-shoes, zories, clacks, clippies, scuffs	Pluggers, jandals, Havaianas, slops, visplakkies, tsinelas, smagol, padukas, chappal

IAlthough modern flip-flops have the "toe knob” anchor between the first and second toes just like Greek and Indian sandals did, Roman sandals’ toe-knob was between the second and third toes, Mesopotamians’ between the third and fourth toes.

Flip-flops in the US first became well-known as soldiers returned from their WWII Pacific deployments bringing Japanese zori sandals. By the late 1950’s they were redesigned using bright colors and soon covered many more American soles.

One recent estimate of international flip-flop market sales was $20.1 billion (B), with an expected annual growth rate of 4.2%. Well-known flip-flops wearers include the Dalai Lama. Honolulu-born Barack Obama became the first US president to be photographed wearing flip-flops.

US sales of flip-flops was $3.6B in 2020, with female purchasers accounting for a dominant 76% of the market. The continued high demand for flip-flops is based on their durability and low prices. Speaking of which, want to guess what the Dollar Store sells its flip-flops for?[1].

One analyst said that US sales of flip-flops exceeded those of sneakers for the first time in 2006, which, if true is quite remarkable given their low cost. But not all flip-flops are inexpensive.

Topping the list of posh sandals were ones developed by an eco-friendly footwear company and artist David Palmer, who painted a very limited flip-flop edition. For a mere $18,000 per pair each purchaser was guaranteed the protection of 100,000 square feet (not their own) of Costa Rican rainforest.

Speaking of flip-flops and ecology, some manufacturers are now changing their production methods to reduce flip-flops’ petrochemical-based inputs. They’re switching to natural rubber, papyrus (yup, returning to a plant used in primeval flip-flops), sugar cane and possibly algae.

The leading Brazilian maker of flip-flops, Havainianas, produces well over 150 million pair a year. Intriguingly, the company name is derived from the feminine form of the Portuguese word for Hawaiians. Havainianas’ most basic flip-flops start at $26, which some estimate includes a 700% markup. Their most expensive pair costs $150, the Zori Mastermind.

Whether you’re wearing your go-aheads, zories or jandals to stroll on Hawaiian beaches or on the South Jersey shore or voyaging the Kalahari or the Tenggeli, you’ll be sauntering in style just like folks have been for centuries.

 

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[1] You get four stars for correctly guessing $1.00.