Arita Yaki - Buckle Shandals® Size 2

These Shandals® are part of the Japanese Silk Collection from Ruth Emily Davey’s travels to Japan in 2016 as part of her Fellowship with The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. She collected a piece of fabric from all the Craft organisations / Workshops she visited to commemorate her travels into a collection celebrating Japanese Traditional Craft.

These Shandals® are made from a mix of Azuli Blue and hand woven Kurume Kasuri Japanese Fabric - the 
Indigo dye comes from the leaves of a plant which has to be ground and squeezed into juice which is actually a pale blue colour. It then has to be dried and fermented for 100 days. This is called ‘sukumo’. The uppers are hand cut, with rolled edges, fully lined in a soft sumptuous Blue suede.

The Buckle is a great design for many although they are not quite as adjustable as the Lace ups, they are a nice sophisticated cut and very flattering around the ankle too.

Shandals® are designed to strengthen your toes. We make them to fit closely around the arch of your foot while the toe thong guides the big toe straight leaving the four toes free. They are broad over the metatarsal arch with a low heel making them exceptionally comfortable and breathable. They frame your toes perfectly making them very flattering too.

• Size 2

• Width - Standard.

• Hand Woven and Indigo Dyed Japanese Fabric.

• Fully lined in soft breathable suede.

• Solid Brass Buckles.

• Double outsole stitched. Finished with white stitching.

• Inner Soles are soft 5mm leather tanned in Britain - designed to be flexible so you're footprint embeds into the sole over time.

• Tyre tread soles - replaceable when they wear down

Shandals® were designed originally by Alan James Raddon for a client with bunions - they are now worn all over the world as comfortable, supportive yet open footwear. All our Shandals® are built to to last, designed to be repairable for years to come.

“Kurume Kasuri work with cotton which means the indigo requires a long fermentation process to allow the material to take the dye. Mr Matsueda explained that Silk can be dyed from the fresh leaves of the indigo because it is already an animal protein where as cotton is a natural , plant based fabric.
Before any of the dyeing process takes place they will need to create the desired pattern so will hand paint a special paint on the cotton while it is stretched on a frame. Then they will have to tie pieces of linen or if they want a pure white relief pattern they will tie it with plastic. If you imagine the amount of time and mathematics it takes to create a pattern when you are dyeing and weaving both directions of the thread, so you can match it all together, It is pretty in incredible to think how much intense work goes into the process of Kasuri altogether. I am in total awe of this special craft.”