Time Is a Flat, Fuzzy, Suede Circle Made in Australia

Uggs, that oft-called up reference point of the aughts, are back. And in a big way!

In my feeble memory of the 2000s, the ginormous slippers once grazed the feet of almost every high school enemy I had. They lined the pre-notoriety closets of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian and adorned the feet of the highest-profile celebrities. It’s almost laughable, in retrospect, how prophetic it all was. One of the most coveted fashion symbols of the time were clunky, suede slippers, paired not with pajamas, but otherwise “fashionable” outfits. If only the world had a collective need for comfort and coziness right now.

Over at the Times style section this morning, writer Max Berlinger decreed: Uggs are back, bitch! (Well, he said an approximation of that, in the stiff Times house style.) In a report on the boots’ relaunch, he documented the reinvention within the company that has seen Uggs migrate off TJ Maxx discount racks, and back into the halls of the fashion elite. Rihanna and Y/Project were early adopters of the new look, among a roster of designers and collaborators that now boasts the likes of Jeremy Scott, Molly Goddard, Phillip Lim, Eckhaus Latta, and the undeniable king of this new fashion world, Telfar Clemens. Of his own collaboration with Uggs, set to be released in 2021, Clemens told the Times: “They are basically an accessible luxury. It’s a Christmas list thing for hundreds of thousands of people. That’s the sort of space we want to occupy.”

So, with the boots back, and on track to be more popular than ever before, I feel it’s only just to look back on the style’s nearly 20-year history, and some of the celebrities of yesteryear that rocked them literally wherever they went. Some of them are Uggs. Some are just copycats pretending to be Uggs.