Cesar Idrobo Is Rewriting What Crocs Can Be

Cesar Idrobo has spent the better part of a decade making other people’s wildest footwear ideas come to life. As a patternmaker steeped in material and manufacturing engineering, he joined Yeezy in 2018 and was tasked with figuring out what came next.

Today, Idrobo is writing a new chapter, having followed sneaker legend Steven Smith to Crocs. The pairing makes more sense than it might first appear: the same direct-injection molding process that Crocs has run on since its founding is part of what made the Yeezy Foam Runner possible in the first place. Since arriving, the two have released two silhouettes, the Ripple and the Roy, built to stretch what that decades-old manufacturing method can do, developed at a pace that outruns most of the industry.

We sat down with Idrobo to talk through his path from Yeezy to Crocs, what it actually takes to turn a sketch into a wearable prototype and why comfort always wins.