A letter from a reader

At 67, I owned four pairs of slippers and hid every one of them when the doorbell went

Before anything else, you should know two things. I have never written a piece like this in my life, and I am not a woman who goes about telling other women what to wear, never mind what to put on their feet.

But three different women asked me about my slippers when I had the girls round for coffee at mine on Friday morning, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started with the doorbell. For years, whenever it went, I did the same little dance. Kick the slippers off behind the kitchen door, pad to the hall in bare feet, and hope whoever it was did not look down. My sister June caught me at it in the spring and thought it was the funniest thing she had seen all year.

Four pairs of slippers, and not one of them I would open the door in.

Flattened, faded, trodden down at the back, every one of them. And I want to be clear that I did not choose that. Nobody decides to shuffle about in slippers like that. It happens quietly, one worn-out pair at a time, until your sister is laughing at you in your own hallway.

How it happens

I used to have proper slippers. There was a pair I had in my forties that I loved so much I wore them until the stitching gave up entirely.

What changed was not me. It was the shops.

Somewhere along the way, slippers for women our age became an afterthought. A thing you grab from a bin by the till, in whichever grey they have that week. Thin, flat, shapeless things that have gone saggy by the end of the month, that slap against your heel with every step, or slide about so much you end up gripping with your toes just to keep them on.

And because they are only slippers, you put up with it. You tell yourself nobody sees them anyway. Which is how you end up hiding your own footwear behind the kitchen door at 67.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I suspect I am not the only one.

I thought slippers were simply something you put up with. That they all went flat, all slid about, and that the only question was how cheaply you could replace them each winter.

It turns out that was never true.

The difference is whether anybody thought about the thing at all. Whether the top actually holds your foot instead of just lying over it. Whether the sole was given a texture so it does not skid about on a hard floor. Whether your feet can breathe so they are warm without cooking. None of that costs a fortune. Somebody just has to bother.

The slippers are called the Gretchen

I found them because of June, as it happens. She came to stay in September and pulled her own pair out of her overnight bag, the way she always does, and set them by the spare bed. I kept looking at them all weekend. The evening she left, I ordered my own.

They are from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. The slippers are called the Gretchen. Mine are the coffee brown, a soft warm shade somewhere between mushroom and milky coffee, with two wide, deep, soft bands that cross over the top of your foot, an open toe, and a light sole with a proper texture worked into it. They do them in eight colours. I will come back to that.

The crossed bands are the clever part. They hold your foot gently from both sides, so the slipper moves when you move, with no flapping at the heel and no curling your toes to keep the thing on. The pile underneath is deep and soft, and the open toe keeps the air moving, so your feet are warm without that hot, bothered feeling you get by mid-morning in a closed pair.

That is really all there is to it. They are not complicated. They are just slippers that somebody thought about.

What happened at the coffee morning

I had the girls round on the Friday, four of us at my kitchen table, and I did not think about my feet once. Which is rather the point, but it is not why I am writing this.

Three of them asked me about the slippers. Three. One of them was Carol, who I have known for twenty years and who once told me my new curtains were very brave.

She said they looked far too nice to be slippers. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments, though, was the not noticing. Nobody kicked anything off behind the kitchen door. When the doorbell went, I simply answered it.

The next morning I was up at half past six to let the labrador out, onto kitchen tiles that in October feel like a skating rink in socks, and the slippers just held steady and quiet under me while I filled the kettle. It is a small thing. It changed the whole start of my day.

Three things I have learned since

One. The sizing is honest. They run from a UK 2 to a UK 8.5, and the fit is the same gentle hold the whole way up. I am between sizes and the crossed bands simply take up the difference, which I wish more shoes of any kind would bother with.

Two. The sole earns its keep. It has a proper texture worked into it, so the slippers do not skid about on my tiles or the wooden floor in the hall. I had honestly accepted that skating about was just part of owning slippers. It is not.

Three. The open toe goes both ways. Warm feet without the overheating, and they look enough like a nice pair of sandals that when the doorbell goes, or the girls come round, you simply carry on with your morning.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Gretchen is £24.95. It was £50.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because I have paid more than that for slippers that went flat by the end of the month.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they have a sale on at the moment to make room for the season ahead.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman from Clitheroe had written, “Ordered the coffee brown for myself and went back for the grey a week later. They stay put on my wooden floors and my feet have never been so comfortable.” That was the one that decided it for me.

Then I ordered the grey as well.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat at my kitchen table with the pot between us, this is what I would say.

If you have a pair of slippers somewhere in the house right now that you would quietly kick off if the doorbell went, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look at these.

Not because slippers will change your life. They will not. But you spend more hours of your day in them than in any other thing you own, and there is something in being comfortable and presentable at the same time, in your own house, that I had quietly given up on. I would rather you did not give up on it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the middle sizes are the ones that go first. And the first autumn stock is already going, so I would not leave it until the proper cold arrives.

The postman rang this morning, and I answered the door without looking down once.

Maggie