docs?

For a long time, Dr. Martens were the height of ugliness in my book. The only people who wore them were, in my opinion, emotionally unstable malcontents who moved in groups where everybody had too-wide ripped trousers with chains attached to them, wore enough eyeliner to paint a room, and wrote lousy poems about how their life felt like a big black hole filled with painful words and how the only way out was to scratch their arms with a cheese grater. While the blogosphere was slowly showing more and more pictures of grungy girls wearing Docs, I contented myself with the knowledge that I, for one, would never ever succumb to the evil-looking Doc-wearers, but would instead fill my closet with lightweight, cute, utterly unpractible shoes.

And then my whole world was shredded apart by this picture.

A couple of months ago, the Cherry Blossom Girl showed Dr. Martens in a way that didn't quite match up with the images in my head of emo girls who paired their fluorescent pink Docs with acid green shoelaces and mismatched stripey socks. Combined with polkadot tights, cutoff Levi's and a sweet vintage floral print, I suddenly wasn't too sure that Docs were the ugliest shoes around - in fact, I wasn't sure about anything anymore. What was next? Were Crocs going to be fashionable, too? In five years, would we be walking around in Nike sandals with socks and feel like the styliest thing around? (Little did I know that a few short months later, the blogosphere would be filled with wooden clogs. As in, Swedish Hasbeens, not the yellow Dutch ones - although Viktor & Rolf did an awesome job with Dutch clogs in 2007. But I'm getting of topic here). So as the Doc Martens started trickling into the Stylish Photos-folder on my computer and every single blogger on my blogroll seemed to own them (and be able to make them look cute), I knew I was sold. And that it wouldn't be long before I myself would be walking around in... oh, maybe those very floral printed Docs! Or the simple black ones that make you look like you should've been born in another time. Or - hey, how cool would it be to come back from London with a pair of Union Jack-printed ones!? Now, for me Dr. Martens have completely lost their repulsiveness and are - I never, ever thought I would say this - incredibly cute.