On Instagram, Microsoft posted a teaser image depicting Crocs with the famed Windows XP background theme and a promise/threat: "coming 🔜."
The famed backdrop is not quite Bliss, the photograph by Charles O'Rear included as the default desktop image in Windows XP. Taken in 1996, it shows a hillside in California's Sonoma county. The Napa Valley Register reported that Microsoft paid "in the low six figures" for all rights to that image, several others also included in Windows XP, and O'Rear's original negatives.
The collab was first reported by The Verge's Tom Warren in August, confirmed by employees on Reddit and officially acknowledged thereafter.
A full "Bliss" wallpaper print across the Crocs upper and packaging, with the classic sky-and-hill colorway reproduced in foam.
Six custom Jibbitz charms themed to legacy Microsoft icons — reported charmsInternet Explorer logo, the MSN butterfly, a mouse pointer, a recycle bin, and a folder/start-button motif.
A matching drawstring bag printed with the Bliss image included in the package.
A reported *ice of $80**, with plans for a broader public release to follow.
Crocs' injection-moulded foam footwear represent a perfect marketing tie-in with Windows XP, as both are popular with aging, miserable Americans nostalgic for their last moment of happiness somewhere in the 2000s.
