As rappers Bhad Bhabie and Lil Yachty would tell you, Gucci flip flops are a hypebeast or an insta baddie must. However, some of us aspiring flexers don’t have $210 to blow on Gucci’s iconic tricolor Web Slide Sandal. But fear not, broke flexers: 5-minute Crafts has a solution.

In their video “Hot Glue Gun Hacks You Must Know!,” they provide a budget-friendly “dupe” for Gucci slides: hot glue slides. They begin by tracing the shape of a flip flop sole onto parchment paper, and then outlining that with hot glue and cross-hatching it in the middle to form the sole of the slide. They then outline and cross-hatch a rectangle piece to serve as the band of the slide. Once the pieces are dried, the disembodied arms glue the strap between two sandwiched soles to keep the whole thing in place. 

I set out to re-create this semi-transparent monstrosity, and fared pretty well until I realized that as I was too broke to afford a whole lot of hot glue sticks. Unfortunately, I had to settle for gluing the strap straight onto one strip of sole rather than two sandwiched soles. The strap refused to conform to the arch of slides’ straps, so I put a book on top of the strap to keep it in place while drying. Once dry, these bad boys were ready for a spin around the neighborhood.

Sadly, I hit turbulence before I left the house. I had made the strap too small, and it felt like a corset for my feet. I shuffled outside in pain. Once again, I ran into trouble: The lumpiness of the sole hurt to walk on, and the slides were annoyingly flappy and flimsy, like flaccid cardboard. 

I made it down my driveway before deciding to spare my feet and taking the Glucci slides off. A whopping three days of shoemaking and countless sticks of hot glue later, I can safely say that my handcrafted Glucci slides, while cheap and unique, offer a uniquely horrible walking experience and no hypebeast-ly confidence. I would not recommend making these shoes. They earn a 0/10 for quality and style. Even if you can’t afford real Gucci slides, I’m guessing it’s better to walk barefoot. It’s probably more comfortable than the Glucci slides.