I have bought summer sandals for forty years. This is the first pair I am writing a letter about
I have bought summer sandals for forty years. This is the first pair I am writing a letter about
Six things the Rosamunde gets right that summer sandals get wrong, from a woman who had given up on sandals and gone back to shoes.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
I am 68, I keep an allotment, and I have never sold a sandal in my life. What I have done is buy them, for forty years, and be let down by nearly every pair by the end of the first warm afternoon. So this is not a review. It is a woman who had given up on sandals and gone back to closed shoes in July, saying that has stopped, and saying why, plainly.
The pair I am writing about is called the Rosamunde, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I first saw them on a woman who walked the whole promenade at Scarborough on the coach trip, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty years of sandals taught me. They come in two piles. The flat pile, which slips on and gives you nothing, so that by the harbour your feet are telling you about it. And the pile with something underneath, which turns out to have a heel at the back and a strap round the ankle that takes five minutes and a chair to do up, and then rubs. Somewhere around sixty I stopped buying from either pile and quietly went back to closed shoes, in July, and called it sensible.
Flat and easy and nothing underneath, or something underneath and a strap that needs a chair. I chose closed shoes, in a heatwave, and called it sensible.
The Rosamunde is the first sandal I have owned that refuses both piles, and having walked a promenade, a garden centre and most of Leeds market in them, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning they arrived. Cream, one band, a wedge like a small loaf. I nearly sent them back unopened.
They slip on, and the back is open
You put your foot in and you are shod. No strap, no buckle, no bending, and no chair. The back is open so there is nothing to work a heel into. At my age I count getting sandals on standing up as a feature worth paying for on its own.
Slide in and go. No straps, no bending. I keep them by the back door and I am out in ten seconds.
Carol R., WakefieldThe wedge lifts the whole foot
Not a heel at the back with nothing under the front. A wedge, thick and rounded, under the whole foot from heel to toe, so there is nothing to wobble on and nothing to tip you forward. I walked the cobbles at the harbour in them. On purpose.
The wedge from the side. Under the whole foot, not just the back. This is why the harbour was fine.
The wedge goes all the way under so I am not balancing on a heel. Steady on cobbles, which I did not expect.
Diane M., HarrogateIt is soft underfoot
The wedge is soft, softer than it looks, so each step lands on something rather than on a board. Every flat sandal I owned before was a piece of nothing with a strap. This is not that. I stood at the plant stall for twenty minutes and did not shift my weight once.
Soft under the foot, properly soft. Stood in the garden centre queue and forgot I had them on.
Patricia L., HuddersfieldThe toe is wide, square and open
Nothing is pinched, nothing is pointed, and your toes are not being asked to share a space built for fewer of them. Wide and open at the front, the way a summer sandal should be, and the air gets in.
Room for my toes at last. Wide and open and my feet stay cool. First sandal in years that does not pinch.
Linda K., BradfordOne band, crossed over, holds the foot without a strap
The top is one wide band that crosses over itself and covers the instep, so the sandal stays exactly where you put it without a single strap or buckle anywhere. It holds on the hill and it holds on the bus step. I kept waiting for it to slap. It does not.
The band crossed over the foot. That is all the fastening there is, and it is enough.
No straps and they still stay on. The band over the top holds my foot better than buckles ever did.
Janet S., YorkThree colours, and a UK 3 to an 8 and a half
The cream I own, which goes with every summer thing in my wardrobe, a black and a cherry red, the same shape in every one, from a UK 3 to an 8 and a half. I went back for the black. The woman from the promenade owns all three and was in the red the second time I saw her.
The three of them on the bed. Same sandal, same wedge, three different summers.
Bought the cream, went back for the black. They go with every dress and pair of trousers I own.
Maureen T., SheffieldThe Rosamunde, against the sandals you have been buying
You can find a pair of summer sandals for fifty-odd pounds on any high street. I know, because I have a rack of them by the back door, each worn to one warm afternoon. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Flat as a board, nothing underneath
Or a heel at the back, and a tip forward
A strap round the ankle that takes a chair
A narrow toe that pinches by the harbour
Slapping behind you by the afternoon
A soft wedge under the whole foot
Nothing to wobble on, nothing to tip you
Slip on, open back, no strap, no chair
A wide square open toe
One crossed band that holds, all day
About the price
The Rosamunde is £25.95 at the moment. It was £52.00.
I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are a small shop selling directly and they run a summer sale to shift the season’s stock before it turns. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that at that price I did not deliberate long over the black, and that the middle sizes were already thin when I went back.
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 people, 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 back door with the basket, where the shoes I actually wear live. The closed shoes have gone back in the cupboard, in July, where they belong.
If you have given up on sandals because they were flat as a board or took a chair to do up, this is the pair I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there.
Pat
ROSAMUNDE | Orthopaedic Slip-On Wedge Sandals
- Slip on, open back, no straps or buckles
- Soft wedge under the whole foot, nothing to wobble on
- Wide, square, open toe
- One crossed band that holds the foot
- Cream, black or red, UK 3 to 8.5
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer sale on now. The middle sizes go first.