I am 68 and the first pair of slippers I have ever written a letter about has a little dachshund on the toe
I am 68 and the first pair of slippers I have ever written a letter about has a little dachshund on the toe
Six things the Helga house slippers get right that slippers always get wrong, from a woman who does not review slippers.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Pat, I am 68, I live in Leeds with my husband Brian, and until this month I had never given a pair of slippers one full minute of thought. Slippers were the flattened things by the back door, worn until they gave up, replaced from a supermarket shelf without looking. So this is not a review. It is a woman who thought slippers simply did not matter, saying she was wrong.
The pair I am writing about is called the Helga, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. On the listing they go by their full Sunday name, dachshund striped cotton house slippers, which tells you most of it. A ribbed coffee brown slipper with a soft pale lining, a rope of the same stuff round the edge, and a little printed dachshund in a striped jumper sitting on each toe.
I first saw them on the new neighbour. She had been out when her parcel came, so I took it in, and when I carried it round the next morning it was raining, and she came straight down her wet front path to the gate to save me the walk. I looked down, the way you do, and thought, she has come out in her slippers, on wet flagstones, and she is not even holding the rail. When the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what a lifetime of slipper buying taught me. Slippers come in two piles. The cheap pile, shapeless felt and foam things that flatten in a month, skate on a smooth floor and are not fit to be seen at the door. And the pretty pile, dainty pairs that look lovely for a fortnight and were never really made to be worn. I had done my years in both, and I had settled, the way you settle for anything you have stopped noticing.
Slippers that work but shame you at the door, or slippers that charm but give up by spring. Those were the options, and I had stopped arguing with them.
The Helga is the first pair I have owned that is neither, and having lived in mine since the day they arrived, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day they came. I ordered them expecting a bit of nonsense. I was wrong about that too.
The little dog earns his keep
Start with the reason everyone asks about them, because everyone does ask. On the toe of each slipper there is a little printed dachshund, a black sausage dog in a striped jumper with a tiny red hat, trotting along as if he owns the place. It should be silly. Somehow it is not. It is the sort of small, deliberate cheerfulness you want at seven in the morning when the kettle is on and nobody has said a word yet. The grandchildren greet the dogs before they greet me, and I have decided not to mind.
The dog himself, on his stripes. The reason every conversation about these starts.
My granddaughter runs to find my slippers before I have my coat off. The little dog gets more attention than I do.
Sheila P., EllandThey go on standing up
There is no back to fight with and no heel to crush down. You step in the way you walk through a door, first thing in the morning, hands full of tea and reading glasses, without switching on the landing light. The front holds your foot, the open back lets you in and out, and that is the whole job. It sounds a small thing. At my age, first thing, on the bottom stair, it is not a small thing at all.
On, in my own kitchen. Stepped into standing up, before the kettle had boiled.
No bending and no pulling at the heel. I am into them at six in the morning without putting the light on.
Brenda K., HolmfirthThe sole does not stop at the doormat
Turn them over and you find the part nobody tells you about slippers. A firm cream sole, slightly raised, with a textured wave design pressed across the whole of it, and it holds. On the smooth kitchen floor, on the cold hall tiles, and on the wet flags outside when the bin needs taking out, the post van comes, or something wants fetching in from the garden. The boutique calls the sole sturdy and made not to slip, and after the wearing I have given mine, I have no argument with either claim. This is what the woman next door knew and I did not. Her slippers do not end at the doormat, so neither does she.
Turned over on the back step. The wave tread underneath is the part that changes everything.
Mine go down the yard to the bin in all weathers and I have not slipped once on the wet flags.
Carol D., NormantonThe footbed keeps its spring
Inside there is a soft plush footbed, deep and warm, and the boutique makes a point of saying it resists flattening with wear. That is exactly the claim to make to a woman with a back door full of pancaked slippers, so I have been paying attention. Weeks of morning to night wear on, mine still feel the way they did out of the parcel, and my feet stopped being cold in the kitchen the day they arrived. Warm without cooking you, soft without going to nothing. That is the balance the cheap pairs never manage.
The inside still feels new after constant wear. Every other pair I have owned went flat in weeks.
Maureen S., FeatherstoneThey look chosen, not surrendered to
Most slippers announce that you have stopped trying. These do the opposite. The upper is a plush ribbed one, neat wide channels running front to back, with that rope of trim round the opening and again along the edge of the sole, and the pale lining showing at the back like a collar. They look like something from a nice shop, deliberately picked, and I no longer do the little shuffle of shame when the doorbell goes. I answer the door. The dog on the toe does the introductions.
They look like something from a proper shop rather than the supermarket basket. I leave them out where people can see them.
Rita B., SilsdenThere is a pair for everyone in the house
They come in five colours, the coffee brown I have, a grey, a khaki, a pink and a white, the same little dog on every one. And the sizes run from a UK 3.5 right up to a UK 10, which is not a ladies’ range, it is a household range. Brian has been eyeing mine for a fortnight and saying nothing, which from Brian is a full letter of interest, so the grey pair is on its way for him. The pink, I suspect, will end up on our granddaughter’s Christmas list without my help.
Bought the coffee for me and the grey for my husband. His have barely been off his feet since they came.
Ann G., Sowerby BridgeThe Helga, against the slippers you have been buying
You can pick up a pair of slippers for a few pounds anywhere, and I have spent fifty years doing exactly that. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Thin flat soles that skate on smooth floors
Not fit to step past the doormat
Linings that flatten to nothing in weeks
Shapeless things you hide from visitors
Replaced every year without a thought
A sturdy raised sole with a textured wave tread
Steady for the bins, the post and the garden path
A soft plush footbed that resists flattening
A ribbed finish, rope trim and the little dog
Made to be worn every day and still liked
About the price
The Helga slippers are £24.95, down from £50.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this is the sale run before the first autumn stock, and once a size goes, it goes. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with a thing, and after living in mine morning to night, I have not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
By the front door, where the shoes used to live. The dogs face outwards, ready for the bins.
If your own slippers are the flattened pair by the back door that you dare not step outside in, this is the pair I would stand you into myself, while your size is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Pat
THE HELGA HOUSE SLIPPERS
- A little printed dachshund on each toe
- Step in standing up, no backs to fight
- Sturdy raised sole with a textured wave tread, made not to slip
- Steady for quick steps outside, bins, post and garden path
- Soft plush footbed that resists flattening
- In coffee, grey, khaki, pink and white · sizes UK 3.5 to 10
- Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The first autumn stock is already going.