Flip Flop Daily’s Chief Dudes, Flip and Flop, recently took a trip to Southern California to present the wonderful folks at OluKai with the long awaited 2020 Flip Flop of The Year Award for their amazing OluKai Ulele flip flop.
The warm welcome received cannot be overstated. It began with reserved parking spot for Flip Flop Daily, in the very full OluKai parking lot.
OluKai HQ is situated in an amazingly creative and welcoming space, thick with the influence of their core tenet that “Everybody, no matter where they are, can live Aloha” a sentiment that is literally written on the walls of OluKai’s offices.
This spirit of Aloha permeated every aspect of our visit, from the incredibly warm and generous welcome by everyone we met at OluKai, to the amazing in house-chef prepared lunch we enjoyed with Melissa, Kerry, and Matt on the sunny outdoor patio of OluKai HQ. It was great to meet the wonderful people behind this unique flip flop brand and even better to learn that such real, kind, and thoughtful folks are at the heart of what they do. That is what we call Doing Life Right.
Kerry and Matt, two of the founders of OluKai, shared a bit about the beginnings of OluKai and the uphill battle in making incredible flip flops and their refusal to settle for a lesser product, despite outright laughter and dismissal at the thought of making premium flip flops by those already established in the world of flip flops.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this struck a cord with Flip and Flop as they’d heard the same when launching Flip Flop Daily, a site and community devoted to the Flip Flop Life – taking flip flops very seriously while having fun at the same time. This passion for seeing the potential for more in something so simple bubbled up as a common bond between OluKai and Flip Flop Daily.
A highlight of the visit was a sneak peak into some future OluKai offerings in the works. There are some incredible OluKai flip flops on the horizon that Flip Flop Daily is eager to review. It is apparent that OluKai’s passion, vision, and focus on making amazing flip flops is just as strong today as it was 16+ years ago when OluKai began.
The afternoon culminated with the official award presentation. Chief Dudes Flip and Flop, clad in their OluKai Ulele flip flops, presented the 2020 Flip Flop of the Year Trophy and bottle of Macallan 12 single malt scotch (the perfect drink pairing for the OluKai Ulele) to OluKai Global Marketing Director, Melissa Ziegler and the moment was captured by OluKai VP of Marketing Kerry Konrady in the great photograph below.
Congratulations to OluKai on their award, we look forward to photos of where they will display the award and know that they will continue to Do Life Right!
You may have noticed the Flip Flop Daily microphone in the photos above. That’s because we are launching a Flip Flop Daily Podcast in which Flip and Flip will discuss the Flip Flop Life, flip flop philosophy, and feature interviews with flip flop makers, including Kerry Konrady of OluKai among many others. More to come on that later. Until then keep Doing Life Right and Flip Flop Daily.
