I spent about four years buying black sandals in the wrong order. Bought the delicate, strappy one first because it photographed well on a hanger, wore it twice, both times spent the evening walking like I’d been recently injured. Then bought the sturdy one out of spite, the sort with a proper block heel and a footbed that doesn’t punish you for standing up at a party, and that’s the one that’s been to two weddings, a work thing in a car park in July, and a christening where I stood on gravel for forty minutes without incident. Order matters. Comfort first, then decide how delicate you’re feeling.
What I actually love about black sandals as a category is that they do the thing black clothing generally does, which is get out of the way and let everything else make sense, but with your feet involved, which raises the stakes more than people admit.
A good pair has some structure to it, a strap that sits where your foot actually bends rather than where the designer hoped it would, and a sole with enough grip that you’re not doing the little skid dance on tile floors outside restaurants. Skip anything that needs breaking in for an occasion you only get once.
Styling wise, they’re the least fussy decision you’ll make about an outfit and I mean that as praise. Bare legs with a slip dress for anything after 6pm.
With trousers, cropped, so the strap detail actually shows rather than disappearing under fabric like it never happened. With denim they do the job of making an outfit look considered without you trying, which my colleague Priya once described as “cheating but allowed.”
Occasion-wise, this is your summer wedding shoe, your garden party shoe, your dressed up dinner where you still have to walk from the tube shoe. Anything with a heel enough to feel like effort but a footbed that means you’re not sitting down by ten. I’d avoid the very flat, very minimal ones for anything involving cobbles, grass, or a night that ends later than planned, learned that one properly the hard way, ruined tights and all.
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