060. How Much Should Great Sandals Cost?
Identifying Good Leather and Choosing the Right Fit
Last month, I wrote about the declining quality of fashion. I interviewed designers and product developers to understand what goes on behind the scenes to explain why brands produce clothes of increasingly worse quality. I reflected on how difficult it has become to find brands that consistently use great fabrics and many of you sympathised. This pre-empted the launch of a new monthly column dedicated to helping you shop for your most wish-listed items by comparing different brands and different price points.
The most popular request for the first send of the column was minimalist flat sandals and to review them I enlisted the help of shoemaking expert
. [Melissa is the founder of the shoe brand Winnoh and an award-winning writer and editor. We met in 2020 while working on the development of brands championing size inclusivity - her a wide-fit shoe brand, me a clothing brand for women under 5ft4 - and became very close friends. She’s one of the kindest humans I have had the chance to meet. If you have wide feet and you love good craftsmanship and buying from businesses with good people behind them, check out her brand]. In this week’s newsletter, we chat about what makes a great pair of sandals, she shares her insights on:Identifying quality craftsmanship
Choosing the right size and fit
Finding comfortable sandals
How much you should spend
I know you’ll appreciate her no-nonsense approach to how much a great sandal should cost. In next Sunday’s newsletter, Melissa and I test out sandals from St. Agni, Emme Parsons, Massimo Dutti, Ancient Greek Sandals, Jil Sander, ATP Atelier, Aeyde, Totême, and more, and tell you what brands are worth buying.
I hope you all have a scintillating Sunday.
Love, L x
Note: This newsletter includes no affiliate links or sponsored content.
Identifying Quality Craftsmanship
Liza Belmonte: You’ve designed, developed, and produced sandals. What makes a well-made pair of flat sandals?
Melissa Epifano Varley: It’s a combination of things. First, unless you’re vegan, leather is the best material. It’s sturdy, wears well colorwise, and will last you a long time, as long as you’re not using them as water shoes. If you’re paying a substantial amount, you should expect good-quality leather. Second, what makes a great sandal is the construction of the straps. They need to be comfortable, pliable, and not dig into your skin. Leather will stretch and have some give, but when you try them on, make sure straps don’t strangle your foot. If you’re paying mid-range prices and above, you should be able to feel that straps and the overall fit of the shoe have been thought through as a priority for your comfort.
Traditionally the soles of sandals were stitched. Now, to cut costs soles are glued, which is absolutely fine if done well and neatly. You shouldn’t be feeling or seeing the glue anywhere around your sole that is a bad sign.
LB: The sandals we’re reviewing today all use all sorts of leather (cross-breed lamb leather, Nappa leather, cow leather, etc). There seems to be a ‘hierarchy of leather’. Is this something consumers should be paying attention to?
MEV: There is a hierarchy of leather and there are also different levels within each category. For example, you can find mediocre calfskin leather with many flaws and incredibly fine calfskin leather. Therefore, I wouldn’t use specific denominations of leather as a criteria when you’re shopping but rather familiarise yourself with the feel of premium leather. Inspect the leather. Press your thumb into it and make sure it bounces back. Creases after you try on leather sandals are naturally occurring, completely normal, and not a sign of bad leather. However, cracking, ripping, tearing, discoloration, and scarring are things you don’t want to see and signs of poor-quality leather. I also recommend staying away from pebbled leather which is an imprint of leather used to hide flaws. It isn’t the best quality.
Most of fast fashion uses cheap leather or composite material coated with a leather finish. This will greatly affect the wearability and longevity of your shoe (read, make it much worse). From a mid-range price point, the average customer is not going to notice a huge difference. The wearability, durability, and comfort of a $300 pair of sandals from a brand that uses great leather will be the same as a $700 pair from a heritage luxury brand that uses fine leather. This is unless you are incredibly particular about your materials or familiar with shoemaking like the back of your hand.
LB: I see a lot of high-end brands choose rubber for the outer sole. Is this a red flag?
MEV: Rubber is plastic and plastic is cheaper than leather so I shall hope that’s reflected in the price. On a side note, that’s why brands who make vegan leather shoes should not charge as much as genuine leather as they are cheaper to produce. That being said, it's not a red flag or something to turn your nose up to; It can be a great choice depending on how you plan to use the shoe. If you’re going to wear the sandals on sand or wet pavement, rubber will protect the bottom of the shoe for longer and might also be less slippery. If you ever buy hiking sandals, definitely go for a rubber outer sole.
Choosing The Right Fit And The Right Size
LB: How should a good pair of sandals fit you?
MEV: The straps should hug your foot. ‘Hugging’ is the word because it should be just enough for you to walk properly without the straps suffocating your foot and digging into your skin. If you buy a pair of sandals that is too wide for your foot, you will be flopping around. Your foot will start hanging from one side and swing over to the other side as you walk causing the straps to rub painfully. If you buy a pair of sandals that is too narrow, your foot will spill out and your toes will hang at the sides.
LB: Overhang is what happens when you wear shoes that are too narrow for your feet and parts of your foot - usually the toes - hang off the shoe. Why is overhanging bad? Aside from the fact that it’s not a great look.
It’s not healthy for the anatomy of your foot or your arch. Plus, you can get blisters and scrape the bottom of your foot. Maybe people get used to it after a while and then one day they try on shoes that fit their width properly and they’re surprised that shoes are actually comfortable. The footwear industry made it normal for people to hang off at least parts of their sandals and there aren’t enough options made for people with wide or narrow instep. For anyone trying on sandals, if you overhang, I suggest looking at a different size, a different design, or a wide-fit sandal.
LB: What are other signs that a sandal is too big or too small for you? I’m always confused about how much space there should be around my foot in a sandal. Should my heel be in line with the edge of the shoe, or should I be allowing for space around my foot?
You have to walk around in the sandals (on a hard floor - don’t try shoes on a carpet) when you try them on to be able to tell. There’ll be similar telltale signs to when you’re wearing a sandal that’s too wide or too narrow. A shoe that is too long will have you sliding backwards and forwards. A shoe that is too short will have your toes hanging over the front when you walk. Anything up to 1 cm around your foot can be fine and at least 1 or 2 millimeters. If your heel is in line with the back of the sandal you should definitely be going a size up.
LB: You have mentioned to me multiple times that a lot of people have wide feet and don’t know it. How can people tell if they have wide feet? Especially, when all standard-width sandals - like the ones we’re trying on today - have such different widths?
MEV: Toe spillage is your biggest sign. In the summer, every other person I see on the street has their pinky toe or sometimes the whole outer edge of their foot falling over the lining of their flip-flops or sandals. This might indicate that they are wearing shoes that are too narrow. The volume of your foot is equally relevant and if you have wide feet, straps will tend to strangle your feet or even cut off your circulation. If you get a feeling of relief when you take off your sandals, that’s another sign. Same if you are often left with marks or blisters.
As for finding the right width, unfortunately there’s no straightforward answer. There’s no regulatory body that tracks foot sizes. Not many people have narrow feet but that’s how shoes have evolved to be. This gets increasingly problematic as the average shoe size continues to get larger. Even if you have wide feet, you might still be able to find shoes that fit well from regular brands, but it will require a bit of trial and error. However, if you are in pain in most shoes on the market, I do recommend looking up wide-fit specific shoes. At Winnoh, we take a classic length and combine it with a larger size width (i.e. we make a 37 shoe in a 37-size length and a 39-size width, etc.).
Finding Comfortable Sandals
LB: How to choose a comfortable pair of flat sandals?