The search for sustainable sandals

If, like Carrie Bradshaw, you are guilty of having more shoes than you have space for (she kept hers in the oven), you are not alone. Worldwide footwear production has doubled every 20 years, from 2.5 billion pairs annually in 1950 to more than 22 billion pairs last year. Where do they all go? With a comparatively small second-hand market and almost no recycling, as many as 24 billion end up in landfill each year. Many contain EVA, a substance that helps to cushion your soles but takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

“Shoes are very complicated to make, with a lot of different components,” says designer Nicholas Kirkwood. “These come from all over the world – there’s a big environmental footprint on that side. And even if the shoe has some natural content, it is still glued, and the sole is almost always derived from fossil fuels, so you end up with a product that won’t biodegrade and can’t be recycled.”

Kirkwood, who tried to reverse engineer some sustainability into his designs, shuttered his brand in despair in February. But he will shortly unveil a new design made of natural materials.

He’s one of a few shoe pioneers trying to find solutions in a notoriously difficult arena. The late shoe designer Camilla Skovgaard, who once worked at Marc Jacobs, was another. Her Of Origin brand makes jute sandals you should be able to bury at the bottom of your garden. The shoes are a hit in Ibiza, where Of Origin is based, but are unlikely to last long on rainy footpaths.

AT Kollektive leather Studded Sandal Three, €520

Raíz Atelier vegetable-tanned leather and cork Pino sandals, £380

A 100-per-cent leather sandal is another option, but only if the leather is treated right. Leather may be a natural material, but the tanning process uses toxic chromium, which leaches out into soil and rivers. Raíz Atelier has attempted to make a sustainable summer wedge with vegetable-tanned leather. Inspired by ’70s style and hand-crafted in Spain, the shoes also make use of cork, wood and wicker. The hardware is metal, but that should be all that remains at the bottom of the compost heap.

Gabriela Hearst is just as ambitious, having been obsessed with shoemaking since the beginning of her career. Inspired by English shoe brands such as Tricker’s and John Lobb, designed to last a lifetime, as well as maestros such as Salvatore Ferragamo, she prefers to look to history for answers. “If it has worked for hundreds of years, it will still be working,” she says. 

One of her favourite materials is cork, “as you don’t cut the tree, you shave it, and the tree regenerates”. Her Anactoria Mule uses a deerskin upper and a leather-wrapped cork platform sole. She also makes heels from wood (from FSC-certified forests) for her Mika, Graham and Hill sandals, but concedes it gets tricky when it comes to soles. Her Ryka sandal has been developed with a new Bloom technology, which is “the process of converting algae into a workable foam product. The algae are harvested from Lake Tai in China as an environmental restoration project.”

EVA helps to cushion your soles, but takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade

Scaling these innovations is harder. In her role as creative director at Chloé, Hearst has turned to recycled materials. “The strategy has been to lower the impact – for the Nama collection, we use water-soluble glue and recycled materials, resulting in 80 per cent less water and 35 per cent less greenhouse gas.” Hearst has also partnered with Ocean Sole, a not-for-profit that recycles rubbish, making a virtue of the three billion flip-flops discarded each year by repurposing them into the multicoloured Lou sandals.

Ultimately, as with most sustainability, the real test comes with longevity. “I come from gaucho culture, where people had a few pairs of boots that lasted them a lifetime,” adds Hearst. “When I create a product, it’s with the idea of hand-me-downs. It’s how I grew up.”

As a society, we are no longer in the habit of repairing shoes. Specialist companies will clean your trainers, but a broken heel or strap on a pair of shoes will often consign them to the bin. At Grenson, shoes are built to last 10 to 15 years, and the company hopes to extend that with its Back On The Road programme. “Send in your Grenson shoes and we will fix them, restitch the upper and then sell them on as second-hand at a lower cost,” says owner Tim Little.

He works with UAL’s The Centre for Circular Design to trial new materials, but “if there was a material as good as leather, everyone would use it”. He has started working with an Italian leather tanned with olive leaves. They also use materials recycled from production waste for the soles, which is “another step in the right direction. In the soles you can see little chips of all different colours – they’re quite different and beautiful.” 

Ultimately, “the best option with shoes is to have less”, says Hearst. This is bad news for Carrie Bradshaw, but with annual shoe production currently expected to hit 30 billion pairs by 2030, there’s an argument for buying
the best quality that you can afford. And wearing them forever.