7 summertime shoe styles you loved as a little kid
There's no better season to be a kid than summer when school's out, camp's in session, and the world is quite literally your playground.
While we spend a lot of time reminiscing about the TV shows, video games, and even the snacks we loved as kids, let's take some time to talk about fashion.
From sneakers that transformed into rollerblades to flip-flops that gave us 4-inch boosts, these are the shoes we ran around in all summer long.
1. Heelys
Kids don't need to be zipping around on wheels all day long, and yet Heelys made that a reality. These iconic shoes made a serious mark on the childhoods of anyone who grew up in the early 2000s, and if you're like me, they also left their mark in the form of a few scars.
2. Light-up sneakers
On the days we climbed over rocks and ran through dirt, we did it all in our light-up sneakers. No matter the shoe design, a light-up sneaker was always the talk of the playground. And yes, they totally sell these for adults.
3. $1 Old Navy flip-flops
The Old Navy flip-flop sale has long been a summer staple, and these suckers are still a pool-side necessity to this day. They're not the highest quality shoes, but why should that matter when they cost literally just a buck? They'll get you from the pool to wherever you need to go and that's all that matters to a kid in the summer.
4. Platform flip-flops
On the other end of the flip-flop spectrum are platform sandals. They had the power to elevate you from Normal Kid to Cool Kid. I'm sorry, but it's true. I don't make the rules.
5. Birkenstock clogs
Any style of Birkenstock sandals are a timeless summer shoe for all ages, but the clogs are in a league of their own. They protected our toes from stomps on the playground, but gave our heels room to breathe. What more could we ask for?
6. Mesh slippers
You might know these colloquially as "Chinese slippers," but whatever you called them, you already know that these were ~all that~ and more in the early 2000s. If you had multiple colors, even better. I treated these like Pokémon, in that I tried to collect them all. Balenciaga can make all the slippers they want, but there's nothing like a pair of classic mesh slippers to wear out in the world.
7. Jellies
Another marker of a playground cool kid were jelly sandals — which is another way of saying that everyone was cool, because pretty much every kid had a pair. The fact that Rihanna designed a version of these plastic shoes for adults is a definite sign of their cultural impact.
