"Mandals" disapproved by Facebook users

Guys just shouldn’t wear flip-flops. 6,530 people who like the Facebook page “Men shouldn’t wear Flip Flops” say so.

Still, guys in Gainesville can be spotted flashing some toe on campus or about town, and both experts and students here don’t seem to mind.

The authors of the locally owned and operated men’s lifestyle blog, The Swag Section, dismissed the objections to men showing their feet in public. Emiko Asifor-Tuoyo and Tyler Whitney both said guys should dress for the weather and that flip-flops are a male Floridian’s fashion staple that are appropriate for most situations here.

“It makes sense in Florida,” said Asifor-Tuoyo, a 22-year-old UF architecture senior.

Meeting and talking with people from more landlocked parts of Florida, other states, countries and continents may be responsible for making more people frown upon guys in flip-flops.

The bloggers agreed that wearing flip-flops is appropriate for guys here because of the weather but cautioned that in other states where warm weather, pools and beaches are not commonplace, “mandals” may be in poor taste.

Asifor-Tuoyo is from Tallahassee, where mandals are less common than in Naples, where his co-blogger Whitney is from, he said.

“I have friends who are from New York and they say, ‘That’s really trashy,’” Asifor-Tuoyo said. “It’s a really localized norm.”

Caroline Lewicki, a 20-year-old health science student at UF, said she never really thought it strange for guys to wear open-toed shoes until someone from another country pointed it out.

“I was watching an interview with Emma Watson, and she said that guys in England usually wear closed-toed shoes, and that it freaks her out that guys wear open-toed shoes here,” Lewicki said. “I feel like it’s just everybody does it all the time. People don’t really think about it. I never really noticed it till someone else mentioned it, and she lives in England, and that’s just a whole different fashion sense.”

But even in the plains of the American Midwest, guys can be found wearing flip-flops in casual social situations, according to A.J. Thouvenot, a former “Project Runway” designer working in St. Louis, Mo., who showed his spring collection at Gainesville Fashion Week in April.

“Growing up in the suburbs and even when I go to visit, flip-flops seem to be the number one choice for shoes,” Thouvenot said.

“Here in town, I don’t even see women in open-toed shoes,” he said, pointing out that a scarcity of sandaled men in cities is probably more about keeping their feet safe rather than a conscious fashion choice.

The bloggers at The Swag Section said they think that generational differences also skew some people to say no to mandals. Asifor-Tuoyo said that when he was in middle school and high school, popular brands like Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister Co. made flip-flops the norm among his

cohort.

“I feel like that’s something we are going to carry on,” he said. “That was our time.”

Bearing the torch may be getting easier for Asifor-Tuoyo and his generation. Flip-flops for guys are actually having a fashion “moment” right now, Thouvenot said. They are now available in a range of dressy styles appropriate for more occasions than beach trips and attending class.

“I think that men are getting more options now,” he said. “For the past couple years, women have had this higher-end sandal trend for them. We’re getting a little bit of a kickback now. I think that’s a good thing for us.”