Woven Leather Sandals

Those sandals in the window of that shop on Newbury Street have a woven leather upper that looks like it took someone a long time to get right. The color is a sun-bleached tan you can't really manufacture without actually letting the leather age. I didn't go in to check the price because honestly the not-knowing is part of the appeal right now. They remind me of sandals you'd see in old photographs of Mediterranean markets. Fishermen and farmers wore them because the woven pattern lets air through while still holding your foot in place. Craft traditions like that get passed down, and eventually someone puts them in a boutique window with a $200 price tag and calls it artisanal. But the form itself hasn't changed much in decades. The the pattern still looks this good suggests the original makers were solving for beauty and function at the same time, without necessarily separating the two. Shoe trends come and go, but the woven leather sandal keeps reappearing every summer because the proportions are just correct.