Men Wearing Sandals

Do it with Your Socks On

Men's sandals have a bad reputation, certainly the proliferation of  Velcro-fastening, flip-flop based abominations passing as sandals. They're impostors when you compare them against the classic styles.

Remember the desert sandals (or chapplies) worn by the tough-as-nails Long Range Desert Group in the Second World War?

The desert sandal is perhaps a bit too rough-and-ready for our tastes — a better bet would be the closed-toe sandal, which let's in the breeze but doesn't reveal anything potentially unpleasant to the eye.

The sandals you see here are from Paul Smith in soft and supple stone-coloured leather, with leather lining, and copper buckles. I think there's something very modernist about them. They deserve to be in a Style Council video. Perhaps because they look a bit like a bowling shoe.

The sandals are also very similar to the ultimate sandals by John Lobb featured in a Day at the Seaside.

Fashion commentators mostly dismiss the socks and sandals combination as a crime against humanity. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Closed-toe sandals should be willingly worn with socks (though they don't have to be): and such sandals deserve proper socks, not those silly 'liners' that you see poking out of training shoes.

In muted tones you might get away with wearing them on a hot and sultry evening in Rome:

But they're really built for summer colours and a daytime saunter in Llandudno with an ice cream in one hand and a pot of cockles in the other: