Hayden the fisherman, modelling his accidental invention, "Crocbands", unaware of his genius.
There are two types of inventors in the world.
The first type plans everything. They sketch, prototype, test, refine and file paperwork.
They have timelines, budgets, whiteboards full of arrows and probably a patent lawyer on speed dial.
Their ideas are carefully thought through and rolled out with intention.
These inventors know exactly what they’re trying to build before they ever start.
The second type stumbles into it. They’re not trying to invent anything at all.
They’re just mucking around, making do, fixing a problem in front of them or trying to get through the day with a bit less hassle.
They break things, adapt things, and occasionally end up creating something that makes you stop and say, “hang on … that’s actually genius".
I like to think of these as Kiwi inventors.
History has plenty of both types, but the most enjoyable inventions are the ones that feel like a lucky accident rather than a corporate masterplan.
Take penicillin.
Alexander Fleming basically left a science experiment lying around like a teenager with a half-eaten plate of leftovers, then noticed mould had killed the bacteria.
Instead of chucking it out and pretending it never happened, the world ended up with one of the greatest medical breakthroughs of all time.
Or the microwave.
A bloke working on radar technology noticed a chocolate bar in his pocket had melted.
Most of us would have called that a tragedy and returned to the vending machine to replace the melted bar.
But he saw an opportunity, and now the world is full of reheated leftovers and pies that are molten on the inside and frozen on the outside.
Even potato chips started with irritation, according to culinary legend.
A customer complained their fries were too thick, so a chef sliced them paper-thin out of spite, fried them and accidentally created an international snack empire.
While this has since been proven to be a myth, I reckon it could be classified as a revenge invention.
All of this proves that a lot of invention doesn’t come from inspiration.
It comes from frustration, laziness, boredom and a bit of “what if I do this?” AKA danger!
Which is probably why it feels so familiar in New Zealand.
Because if there’s one thing Kiwis are naturally good at, it’s not necessarily inventing from scratch, but making things work.
We don’t always sit down and design the perfect solution.
Sometimes we just patch it, tweak it and somehow end up with a better idea than the one we started with.
Think of the Trekka; the Kiwi-made vehicle’s development was influenced by the need to find a workaround for high import taxes.
You don’t need to know exactly where you’re going all the time.
Sometimes you just need to start doing something, see what happens, which is, incidentally, how I ended up writing these articles.
And over Christmas, I met one such accidental visionary.
A fisherman we’ll call Hayden (because that is, in fact, his name).
He was standing near the water’s edge, fishing, looking completely at home on the rocks, like he’d been raised by the tide.
And on his feet was something I can only describe as a national breakthrough.
A mash-up so perfectly Kiwi, so perfectly wrong, and yet so perfectly right.
They had the slip-on easy comfort of Crocs, but with the kind of toughness you’d expect from a pair of Red Bands.
Proper sole. Proper grip. Built for wet rocks and poor fashion.
As it turns out, they were Red Bands. Or at least they started life that way.
Hayden had taken a pair of Red Band gumboots, cut them down with the confidence of Alexander Fleming, and with no intention of asking permission, he accidentally created the ultimate hybrid.
I did what any writer in this situation would do. I named them.
Crocbands. (See what I did there?)
Disclaimer: patent pending. By which I mean I’ve thought about it.
However, when you think about it, Crocbands make perfect sense.
They’ve got Red Band attitude with Croc-level comfort.
They’re what happens when practicality and laziness join forces and accidentally create something revolutionary.
And that’s the thing about accidental genius. It doesn’t arrive with trumpets.
It arrives looking slightly ridiculous, like someone’s stitched together two mismatched ideas and somehow created the ultimate solution.
Crocbands aren’t trying to be trendy. They’re trying to be useful. And that’s why they’re brilliant.
In fact, there are no holes in this idea, and if there were, you could always stick a Jibbit in it.
They’re the kind of footwear you wear when you’re standing on rocks fishing … but you’re also ready to fight a sheep, fix a fence and walk straight into the pub without anyone questioning your commitment to the smart casual dress code.
And when you see something like that in the wild, it makes you wonder what the next great accident will be.
More importantly, it makes you wonder whether we’ll recognise it when it’s standing right in front of us.
Because genius doesn’t always announce itself, sometimes it just turns up and gets on with the job.