I am 63 and I have finally found the shoes that go on standing up. It took a woman in a pharmacy line to show me
I am 63 and I have finally found the shoes that go on standing up. It took a woman in a pharmacy line to show me
Six things the Mabel slip on shoes get right that easy shoes usually get wrong, from a woman who does not review shoes.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Peggy, I am 63, I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband Frank, and until this year I could not have told you one interesting thing about any pair of shoes I own. What I could have told you is where I put them on. On the chair by the front door, sitting down, wrestling with laces or forcing my heel in with a finger, every single time I left the house. So this is not a review. It is a woman who thought shoes simply worked that way, saying she was wrong.
The pair I am writing about is called the Mabel, from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly making the ordinary things a little lovelier for a few years now. I first saw them in the line at our pharmacy, on a woman who is on her feet all day doing home visits, in and out of half a dozen houses before lunch with her shoes off at every door, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Brown slip on shoes of the clog sort. A closed rounded toe, a little strap with a dark buckle at the side, and open at the back, so they go on standing up. That woman never sits down for her shoes. I have thought about that more than I care to admit. Read on.
Here is what a lifetime of shoe stores taught me. Easy shoes come in two piles. The slipper pile, soft shapeless things that flap at the heel and announce to the whole street that you have stopped trying. And the proper pile, smart shoes that look right and demand a chair, a battle with laces, and ten minutes of your morning you never get back. I had done my years in both, and I had more or less settled for the battle.
Shoes you have to sit down and fight your way into, or shoes that slip on and look like giving up. Those were the options, and I had stopped arguing with them.
The Mabel is the first pair I have owned that is neither, and having worn them ever since they arrived, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day they came. I ordered them expecting to send them back. I did not.
They go on standing up
No sitting down, no bending, no laces, no shoehorn, no chair by the door. You step into them the way you walk through a door, on your way out, hands full of keys and grocery bags. The back is open, the front holds your foot, and that is the whole job. The first morning I did it without thinking I stood in my own hallway feeling like I had gotten away with something. Ask any woman who has ever balanced on one leg on a porch. This is the thing.
By the front door, facing the right way. You step in on the way out.
I can take the trash out, grab the mail and be back inside before my husband has tied his first shoe.
Ruth H., ThrallFrom the front, they are a proper shoe
The trick of them is that all the easy is hidden around the back. From the front you see a proper shoe. A closed rounded toe with room across the front for your toes to sit flat, a smooth finish, neat stitching along the seams. Nobody in that pharmacy line was looking at the woman’s feet and thinking comfort shoe. They were thinking, as I was, where are those from. You can wear them to the store, to lunch, to church, and nothing about them says slipper.
On, with my navy slacks, on my own hallway floor. A proper shoe from the front.
They look sharp with slacks and nobody guesses how easy they are. I have had comments at church.
Donna W., BartlettThe strap keeps them on your foot
An open backed shoe usually announces you down the street, slapping at your heel like a beach sandal. These stay put, and it is the little side strap that does it. It fastens with a small dark buckle, you set it once to your own instep, and from then on the shoe holds to the front of your foot and walks when you walk. Mine has not needed touching since the first morning, and I have not once walked out of a shoe, which is more than I can say for every other backless pair I have owned.
The side strap and its little dark buckle. Set it once and forget it is there.
No slipping and no slapping when I walk, which every backless pair I owned before did from day one.
Carol M., HollandThe footbed has a shape to it
Inside there is a soft footbed that rises and dips where a foot actually rises and dips, rather than the flat board you find in most easy shoes. Your foot settles into it and stays settled. I notice it most at the end of a long morning on my feet, which is exactly when I used to notice the opposite. It is the difference between standing on something and standing in something, and you feel it the first time you put them on.
You can feel the shape under your foot right away. I wear mine from breakfast to supper.
Linda B., CouplandThe sole is ready for a wet Texas fall
Underneath is a thick black sole with a deep tread cut into it, the sort that holds on to a wet sidewalk. Once the fall rains start, the sidewalks around here are slick more mornings than you would think, with leaves down on top of them, and I am not interested in going down outside the post office. These are steady on all of it, and that thick sole puts a bit of cushion between you and a cold hard floor as well, which your feet thank you for by evening.
Wore them all through the wet week we just had. Steady on wet leaves and no cold coming up through them.
Doris F., FlorenceThey go with everything, and they come in everyone’s size
Brown goes with nearly everything I own. Slacks, skirts, my yard clothes, they all look tidier with these underneath, and they make them in black and tan as well, the same shoe in every color. And here is a detail I have not seen before. The sizes run from US 5.5 right up to US 13.5, which is not a ladies’ range, it is an everyone range. Frank tried mine on in the hallway and said nothing, which from Frank is high praise. I have already gone back for the black, and I am watching the shoe rack closely.
Bought the brown for me and a black pair for my husband. His have barely been off his feet since.
Janet R., RockdaleThe Mabel, against the shoes you have been buying
You can find an easy shoe for fifty dollars anywhere. I know, because the bottom of my closet is full of the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Laces and stiff heels you must sit down to fight
Backless pairs that slap and flap down the street
Flat board footbeds with no shape at all
Thin soles that skid on wet sidewalks
Look exactly like what they are
Step straight in standing up, no bending
A side strap set once to your own foot
A soft shaped footbed your foot settles into
A thick treaded sole, steady on wet ground
A proper shoe from the front, a secret from the back
About the price
The Mabel shoes are $48.95, down from $98.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this is the run being cleared in the sale to make room for the fall stock, and once a size is gone, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that a markdown like that is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and after all the wearing I have given mine, I have not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
On the hall table shelf, under the keys and gloves. Ready for whoever is going out next.
If you are still sitting down by the front door every time you leave the house, and you are tired of choosing between a battle and a slipper, this is the pair I would stand you into myself, while your size is still there. Stop debating and go look.
Peggy
THE MABEL SLIP ON SHOES
- Step in standing up, no laces, no bending
- Side strap with a small buckle, set once to your foot
- Closed rounded toe with room across the front
- Soft shaped footbed your foot settles into
- Thick treaded sole with a proper grip
- In brown, black and tan · sizes US 5.5 to 13.5
- Free shipping
Sale on now. The first fall stock is already going.