Ready Your Smelling Salts—Ugg Boots Might Be Going Extinct

Terrible news, sorority girls of 2003. Despite the heroic efforts of Tom Brady and Andre Leon Talley and the ghost of Newlyweds-era Jessica Simpson, the once vaunted Ugg boot is swirling down the crapper posthaste. With profits down 31%, it seems unlikely that the company will be able to limp along for too much longer.

In other words, if you’re one of the very few Ugg loyalists out there who hasn’t yet contracted terminal toxoplasmosis from your own foot-sweat, the pair of inside-out yeti bladders you’re currently squelching around in might be irreplaceable. Bonjour tristesse!

The problem? Apparently—for some MYSTERIOUS REASON—they just can’t get women to buy them anymore:

Ugg faces a terrifying reality: women’s boots might be going out of style.

“The worst is yet to come,” Sam Poser, an analyst at Sterne Agee, told the Huffington Post, adding that “weaker Uggs sales might not just be due to weather, but may indicate that the boots have fallen out of fashion.”

If that’s true, Ugg’s problems become a lot more daunting. While the company is making strides with men, women’s boots make up the vast majority of its business.

Oh, I see! You guys are confused! Let me help you out. You are having trouble getting women to buy your boots because your boots are fucking groooooooooooooss. Your boots make Mama June’s forklift foot look like Cinderella’s gossamer-swathed princess toe. Your boots look like “barely escaped from the quicksand pit chic.” Your boots look like two shaved Fizzgigs are trying to hump your feet to death. And, unfortunately for the Ugg corporation, it’s not really “on trend” right now to look like a muppet with edema.

So, why can’t Uggs go the way of other popular purveyors of toe-crime (such as Crocs and Tom’s) and just start making a shitload of other styles of shoe until something catches on? Because they don’t wanna, I guess:

Women are unlikely to shell out for Ugg flats or loafers because they are already loyal to other brands. Boots are the core product.

I mean, I don’t know, I’m pretty sure women will buy cute stuff if you make cute stuff. But you’ll never get anywhere with that attitude, Uggs! If we’re leery of your product it’s not because boots are going out of style—it’s because your project is a sweat-wet In the Night Kitchen GARBAGE PARTY. So just, you know, make something cute! I mean, Uggs are basically slippers, and slippers are functional—not fashionable. I’m sure you can make some sort of functional slipper that doesn’t make my eyeball barf.

In a confidential company memo leaked to Jezebel, Ugg CEO Kevin “Ug” Lee told his marketing department to “GET IT RIGHT OR PAY THE PRICE.”