Forty-six years of watching women slip their shoes off under the table. Last summer I caught myself doing it

A letter from the founder

Six things the Lorelei gets right that summer sandals get wrong, from a woman who has spent her working life telling other women what to put on their feet.

Nora · Founder, Nora Sydney · 5 min read

Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Nora, I am sixty-four, and I have been a personal stylist since 1995. I started at eighteen in a small dress shop, and a good part of those forty-six years has been spent watching women walk a few steps in something and then decide, without saying a word, that they will manage.

So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about a sandal, saying so.

The one I am writing about is called the Lorelei, and it is in my own boutique, which I should say plainly before you read another line. I did not pick it for the client who wore it to our fitting. She found it herself.

Here is what forty-six years taught me about summer shoes. They come in two piles. The pretty pair, thin-strapped and open and lovely on the shelf, which you can wear as long as you are mostly sitting down. And the sensible pair by the back door, wide and beige and perfectly comfortable, which you would not wear to meet anybody.

Lovely and unwearable, or wearable and invisible. I had owned both piles for years.

The Lorelei is the first pair I have owned that is neither, and having now worn them to the markets, through a long lunch and around the headland, I can tell you it comes down to six things.

1The toe is closed

This is the one that surprised me. Almost every comfortable sandal is open at the front, and an open front is what makes a shoe read as something you wear in the garden.

The Lorelei is closed across the toe, with the straps woven over it. From a few steps away it reads as a shoe. Nobody looks at your feet and decides you have given up on them.

★★★★★

I had written off closed-toe sandals years ago. This is the first pair that changed my mind.

Beverley T., Castle Hill

2The ankle strap actually adjusts

Most sandals give you one setting and you live with it. If it is a touch loose your heel lifts out of it, and if it is a touch snug you spend the afternoon aware of it.

The Lorelei closes with an adjustable strap across the ankle. You set it where you want it in the morning and you can change it again later in the day without thinking twice about it.

★★★★★

Being able to let it out a little in the afternoon is the whole reason I kept them.

Glenys P., Mooloolaba

3The footbed is shaped, not flat

A flat sandal is a piece of sole with a strap over it. Your foot sits on top of it and does the work on its own.

The Lorelei's footbed is moulded. There is a contour running through the middle of it and the shape is built into the sole rather than laid on top. You notice it the moment you put them on, and you notice it again at four o'clock, which is the hour that decides whether a sandal stays in the wardrobe.

★★★★★

The first thing I noticed putting them on was the shape of the inside. Very different to my old ones.

Marguerite D., Ballarat

See the Lorelei

4A wedge, not a heel

I like a little height. What I do not like is standing on a heel for three hours, and at my age I have stopped pretending otherwise.

The Lorelei sits on a low wedge, so the sole is thicker under the heel and tapers forward in one continuous piece instead of narrowing to a single point at the back. You are a bit taller and the sole is still flat on the ground under you.

★★★★★

A bit of height without the wobble. I wore them to my niece's engagement and walked to the car in them.

Rhonda W., Geelong

5The straps go with what you already own

This is the part I enjoyed. A plain tan sandal is safe and dull, and a bright one only works with the single outfit you bought it for.

The Lorelei's straps are woven in blended shades, so each pair carries two or three tones rather than one flat colour. That is why they sit happily with denim, with navy, with cream and with a floral dress, and you never have to plan around them.

★★★★★

They go with absolutely everything in my wardrobe, which is more than I can say for the tan pair I replaced.

Carmel H., Toowoomba

6Four colours and nine sizes

Blue, Brown, Burgundy and Green, and the sizing runs from AU 4 all the way to AU 12. The navy is the one that goes first, and I have stopped being surprised by that.

There is a particular disappointment in finding the shoe and discovering it stops two sizes before you, and I have watched that happen across a counter more times than I care to count.

★★★★★

An AU 11 that is not a man’s shoe and not beige. I ordered the navy and then the green.

Noelene F., Bendigo

The Lorelei, against the sandals you have been buying

You can find a summer sandal for fifty-odd dollars almost anywhere. I know, because I own the evidence by the back door. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

I will not put a shoe in front of a woman if it asks her to choose between walking comfortably and looking like herself. That is the whole reason the Lorelei is in the boutique.

About the price

There is a spring sale on at the boutique now, which is how the price got to where it is.

I will tell you what I tell everyone who asks. I do not have a shop. No lease, no fit-out, nobody on the floor on a Saturday, and nobody in the middle taking a cut between the shoe and you. That is the whole of it.

If you are torn between two colours, take them in the one order, because the discount steps up when you do.

And I do not trust perfect scores either. Ours sit at 4.7 across the boutique, which sounds like real people rather than robots.

If you have a market morning, a long lunch, a grandchild's school concert or a walk along the water anywhere in your future, and your good sandals currently come off under the table, these are the ones I would put on your feet myself.

Nora

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See the Lorelei

About the writer. Nora is sixty-four and founded Nora Sydney, an online boutique. She has been a personal stylist since 1995 and started at eighteen in a small dress shop. She chooses what goes in the boutique; she does not design or make it.

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