Injection-molded soft plastic footwear -- also known by sexier-sounding names like jelly shoes and jellies -- is made the world over, rising and falling in the fashion world at any given time. Many folks remember jellies from when they were growing up; some still don them today. But jelly shoes got their start back in the '80s. The early products were usually made by a Brazilian company named Grendene, and were marketed and distributed in the United States by the Grendha Shoe Corporation for around $10 to $20 a pair. For such an inexpensive shoe, Grendha took design seriously: Jellies were restyled every six months or so to stay ahead of the competing companies. Nowadays, shoes made from plastic are manufactured by all sorts of companies in a wide range of styles sold at several different price points. They can be clear or colored, woven or solid, glittered or bejeweled, translucent or opaque.

Jelly fans rave about the shoes because they're easy to clean, cheap to manufacture and comfortable to wear (although there are others who would beg to differ on that last point). And while most jellies are cheap to make, it's important to note the price can be quite steep for those marketed to high-end consumers and made by companies better known for their fine footwear. On the next page, we'll take a closer look at how jelly shoes leaped off the assembly line and onto shoe store shelves the world over. While it's not entirely clear when or where jelly shoes were first invented, their game-changing debut in the United States took place at the 1982 Knoxville World's Fair. Steering this push to the wider fashion world was the Preston Haag family. Preston Haag Sr., a former banker interested in a new career, was traveling across South America in 1981 searching for products he could arrange to export. Brazil was where he noticed jellies for the first time, and he quickly struck a distribution agreement with the company that manufactured them, Grendene, to sell the unique shoes in the United States under the amalgamated name: Grendha shoes.

One important early customer was Bloomingdale's; Doris Johanson, an employee in charge of purchase decisions, ordered 2,400 pairs in nine styles at the Chicago shoe convention. The shoes were sold both on the Bloomingdale's sales floor and through the catalogue. Others also noted the potential of jelly shoes, expanding the field of injection-molded soft plastic footwear and experimenting with different formulations. Next up -- how jelly shoes are made. PVC, which stands for polyvinyl chloride, has many potential formulations and can be both rigid and flexible. It's relatively cheap to make, and products made from it tend to be long lasting and low maintenance. Making jelly shoes is a pretty straightforward process. At Grendene, for example, machinists use CNC machines (that stands for computer numerical control) to shape the molds for their various brands. The jellies are then formed through the process of injection molding; PVC resin, along with lots of additives to adjust the shoes' rigidity, texture, color and other physical characteristics, is forced into the molds to take shape.

It's used heavily for construction, automotive, agricultural, medical, electronic and packaging purposes. It can also be found in consumer goods ranging from garden hoses to sporting goods and kitchen appliances to kids toys. On the next page, we'll examine the journey jellies have made through the do's and don'ts lists of fashion magazines over the years. PVC is a highly controversial but widely used substance. And although they are, perhaps, best associated with the '80s, they definitely still appeal to today's consumers. There was a surge of new or slightly more grownup buyers in the mid '90s, and another in the mid '00s. In the world of injection-molded soft plastic footwear, there are now also loads of shapes, so to revisit jellies, you don't have to pick the same styles of your youth. PVC ballet slippers, pumps, flats, thongs, boots and sandals abound. Some come with stylized straps, others sport bows, while still more are adorned with rhinestones and other sparkly accoutrements.

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