Cork Footbed Sandal

Details

A two-strap sandal on a cork and natural latex footbed. Cork compresses only where you load it, so after about a fortnight of daily wear the bed carries the map of your own arch and heel and starts supporting instead of resisting. The cheat in this category is the word cork doing work the material is not doing. A 2 mm cork veneer is pressed onto an EVA or PU foam core, the edge is sealed so you cannot see the join, and the sandal is sold as a cork footbed. It feels similar for a month, then the foam takes a permanent set and the bed stops holding any shape at all. The test is a section cut through the bed, and we cut one from each lot: this bed is cork granulate bound in natural latex through its full 12 mm at the arch, at a density of 250 to 300 kg per cubic metre, with nothing else inside it. The straps are the other place to look. Leather is sold in four grades that the word leather hides. Full-grain keeps the outer surface of the hide with its pores. Top-grain is that surface sanded away and sprayed. Genuine leather, which sounds like an assurance and is the second-worst grade there is, is a split from the lower layer with a grain embossed on it. Bonded leather is scrap dust glued to a backing. The straps here are 3 mm full-grain, grain uncorrected. The footbed lining is a suede split, and we call it a split because that is what it is: it belongs there because it is absorbent and grips a bare foot, and it would be wrong on a strap, where a split stretches and will not hold a buckle.

• Cork and natural latex through the full thickness, sectioned and checked per lot
• 3 mm full-grain vegetable-tanned straps, grain uncorrected, ISO 17131
• Suede split footbed lining, declared as a split because that is what it is
• Chromic oxide nil by ISO 5398, hexavalent chromium below 3 mg per kg by ISO 17075-1
• Solid brass roller buckle with a replaceable pin, copper rivets at the stress points
• Natural rubber outsole, 6 mm, abrasion tested to ISO 20871, replaceable at any cobbler
• No PU or EVA core under a cork veneer, no plated buckle, no glued-only straps
• Vegetable-tanned straps are stiff for two weeks and will water-mark if you walk them through a puddle. That is the trade for leather that softens to your foot instead of staying the same forever.