Scouted/The Daily Beast/Reef.
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If you were anywhere between the ages of 12 to 35 at any time in the 1990s, there’s a decent chance you had a pair of sandals from Reef on your feet for much of the summer. And if you lived near a beach and were the least bit concerned with being cool and comfortable, I’ll upgrade that chance from “decent” to “near certain.” Reef has actually been around since the mid-80s, but the company hit its stride around the same time “Cotton Eye Joe” and “Gangsta’s Paradise” were lighting up the airwaves and Dumb and Dumber and Waterworld were killing it at the box office. (Well, not Waterworld, actually, if we factor in production costs.)
For the first decade that Reef was making footwear, they were all about comfortable, durable, and stylish enough sandals suitable for beach or town. The company first introduced a closed-toed shoe all the way back in 1996, but the style remained sandal-centric—and male-centric, by the way.