At some point in the last few years, Crocs quietly stopped being a punchline. Not because the brand suddenly changed who they were, but because the rest of the world caught up to the idea that comfort and design don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The Tembo II RO is one of the better arguments they’ve made for that case yet.
The shoe, if you want to call it that, is technically a clog. But calling it just a clog feels like calling a Patagonia fleece just a jacket. The Tembo II RO is built with the kind of materials you’d expect on outdoor gear, not a slip-on shoe from a brand that’s largely known for brightly colored foam and Jibbitz charms. That contrast is exactly the point.
Designer: Crocs
Crocs went back into their own archives for this one. The original Tembo dates to 2010, back when the brand was experimenting with more outdoor-ready silhouettes that never quite found their moment. Fifteen years later, they’ve pulled it back out and rebuilt it from the ground up with two headline-worthy upgrades: a Vibram rubber outsole and a removable Polartec bootie liner.
The Vibram outsole alone is enough to make you take this seriously. Crocs introduced the partnership earlier with the Classic EXP Clog, but the Tembo II RO gets a redesigned tread pattern specifically engineered for traction in wet and icy conditions. Vibram makes the soles for mountaineering boots, trail runners, and serious outdoor footwear across the industry. Seeing that yellow octagon logo on a clog is a little funny the first time you notice it, but your brain adjusts quickly once you think about what it actually means for performance.
The Polartec liner is the detail that impressed me more, though. Polartec is the kind of material brand that works behind the scenes, the one whose fabrics end up inside Arc’teryx jackets, Patagonia layers, and even gear used by the U.S. military. Most people have worn something insulated with Polartec without ever knowing it. The Tembo II RO uses a removable bootie construction lined with it, which means this clog can handle cold in a way that the standard perforated design absolutely cannot. The holes around the toe box that make Crocs breathable in summer become a liability the moment temperatures drop, so the Polartec liner is less of a bonus and more of a necessity.
The whole thing fits into Crocs’ EXP line, a growing family of experimental styles that take archival silhouettes and give them genuine performance upgrades. The Classic EXP Clog and the Terre Tech Mary Jane are also part of it, and as a collection, the EXP line represents a real creative direction for the brand. It’s not gimmicky. It’s not a collaboration done purely for content. It feels like Crocs actually thinking about where a foam clog can go when you stop limiting it by what it’s always been.
At $100, the Tembo II RO isn’t expensive for what it is. Quality Vibram outsoles and Polartec insulation each carry their own pricing weight in the outdoor industry, so seeing both in a single shoe at that price point is worth noting. It launches August 27 in two colorways: “Orange Zing,” a saturated, traffic-cone orange that leans unapologetically bold, and “Elephant,” a muted gray that lets the silhouette do the talking. Both come with dark contrast outsoles that ground the look nicely.
The question that sticks with me is who exactly this shoe is for, and I think the answer is more interesting than the obvious one. Yes, it’s for people who already love Crocs and want a version they can wear past September. But it’s also for the people who haven’t seriously considered Crocs in years, the ones who wrote the brand off a long time ago and need a reason to look again. The Tembo II RO, with its outdoor credentials and genuinely considered construction, is a pretty convincing one.
