I say ugh to the ugg boot

FOR me to comment on fashion is a bit like asking me to rebuild a
computer. Clothes are for keeping warm and covering up the unseemly
bits, not for behaving like some sort of social peacock.
But there was one fashion that even my untrained and jaundiced eye
found neither efficient nor attractive.
The dreaded ugg boots.
In the 1960s and 1970s lambswool ugg boots were all the rage. You can
still see them occasionally, generally being worn by women, in
shopping centres. It's like spotting an endangered species in the
bush.
I should state at the outset that I was once the proud owner and
wearer of a pair of calf-high ugg boots.
I bought my ugg boots in the 1970s when they were regarded as the
height of fashion. They were off-white sheepskin numbers with the
fleece forming the inner lining.
It was not until I wore the boots that their fundamental flaws became
apparent.
If they were meant to look good they quickly went out of shape and
became dirty. If they were meant to keep your feet warm they did.
The trouble was because they were white and made from soft leather it
was only practical to wear them indoors. Outside in the wet and mud
they were next to useless. Inside your feet boiled, outside the boots
got wet and dirty.
If you walked with the slightest twist in your step, if your feet did
not hit the ground in the absolute perpendicular, it was hard to
preserve the boots.
They tend to "walk" over on their sides, creating wear spots on the
lambskin uppers rather than the plastic sole.
Also ugg boots might look reasonable with a track suit, although
that's debatable, but with most other garments including jeans,
shorts, skirts and dresses, dress slacks and kilts they look pretty
ordinary.
So for all these reasons and others, ugg boots became an inefficient
fashion statement in the 1960s and 1970s and thankfully died out.
There are still niche areas where ugg boots survive. Surfers still use
them, but anyone who swims in the winter needs all the help they can
get to warm their toes.
But essentially an icon of the 1960s and 1970s has almost become
extinct. Or has it?
Browsing through a national trade magazine, Inside Retailing my eye
fell on the headline: "Dreaded ugg boots in a comeback."
The article begins: "Ausfurs, the Sydney-based manufacturer of
sheepskin products, is riding high on the sheep's back under a return
to popularity of the ubiquitous ugg boot.
"The lambswool boot, which emerged in the 1960s and was embraced by
the Australian public in the 1960s and 1970s, is making a comeback."
Sales of ugg boots are up between 30 per cent and 40 per cent this
year and exports have increased to the United States.
Logic played no part in the development of ugg boots and it seems
logic has played no part in their revival.
Baywatch star Pamela Anderson Lee is behind the revolution.
Said Ausfar managing director, Bob Hayter: "Pamela Anderson has done
a lot to promote them. She started wearing them when she was doing
Baywatch, and they became a fashion item."
NOW I don't know much about Ms Anderson. What I do know is that if she
wore a pair of blue overalls and a beanie on her head she would look
good. She could make a wheat bag look like a fashion statement.
No doubt she would not "walk" over on her boots or use them in the
garden on rainy days. She probably wouldn't wear them to the
supermarket, which seems to be their remaining urban habitat.
Ugg boots might be efficient footwear for surfers or even Baywatch
types but mine were du

types but mine were du