A LETTER FROM AROHA, ABOUT THE SHOES SHE FIRST SAW AT THE MARAE DOOR

A letter from a reader

I AM 69 AND I HAVE FINALLY FOUND SHOES THAT GO ON STANDING UP. IT TOOK MY COUSIN IN THE MARAE KITCHEN TO SHOW ME

Six things the Annelies slip-on shoes get right that easy shoes usually get wrong, from a woman who has never reviewed a pair of shoes in her life.

Aroha Ngāta · Customer · Gisborne · 5 min read

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et me be straight about who’s talking. I’m Aroha, I’m 69, I live in Gisborne with my husband Rawiri, and until this year I couldn’t have told you one interesting thing about any pair of shoes I own. What I could have told you is how often I take them off. In our whānau, shoes come off at the door. At my daughter’s, at my sister’s, at the neighbours’, and at the wharenui every time we go out to the marae. So every visit means the same thing twice: sitting down on the edge of somebody’s deck, bending over, wrestling with laces or forcing my heel in with a finger, while everyone else is already inside with a cup of tea. So this isn’t a review. It’s a woman who thought shoes simply worked that way, saying she was wrong.

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et me be straight about who’s talking. I’m Aroha, I’m 69, I live in Gisborne with my husband Rawiri, and until this year I couldn’t have told you one interesting thing about any pair of shoes I own. What I could have told you is how often I take them off. In our whānau, shoes come off at the door. At my daughter’s, at my sister’s, at the neighbours’, and at the wharenui every time we go out to the marae. So every visit means the same thing twice: sitting down on the edge of somebody’s deck, bending over, wrestling with laces or forcing my heel in with a finger, while everyone else is already inside with a cup of tea. So this isn’t a review. It’s a woman who thought shoes simply worked that way, saying she was wrong.

The pair I’m writing about is called the Annelies, from Eleanor & James, a small boutique over in Coromandel that makes everyday things a little nicer for women our age. I first saw them on my cousin Huia, who has run the kitchen at our marae for longer than anyone can remember. At a hui in the winter, I watched her go in and out of the wharenui, the wharekai and the back door of the kitchen all day long, shoes off and on at every doorway, and not once did she sit down to do it. When Eleanor & James later asked if they could share my letter, I said yes, on one condition: that 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. Huia never sits down for her shoes. I’ve thought about that more than I care to admit. Read on.

Here’s what a lifetime of shoe shops has taught me. Easy shoes come in two piles. The jandal-and-slipper pile: soft, shapeless things that flap at the heel and are fine for the beach, but tell the whole church that you’ve stopped trying. And the proper pile: smart shoes that look right and demand a chair, a fight with the laces and ten minutes you never get back. I’ve done my years in both, and I’d more or less settled for the fight.

 

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’d stopped arguing with them.

The Annelies is the first pair I’ve owned that is neither. I’ve worn them every day since they arrived, through two family birthdays, a hui and a great many cups of tea at other people’s houses, and I can tell you it comes down to six things.

The day they came. I ordered them expecting to send them back. I didn’t.

1

THEY GO ON STANDING UP

No sitting down, no bending, no laces, no shoehorn, no edge of the deck. You step into them the way you walk through a door, on your way out, with your hands full of keys and a plate of something for whoever you’re visiting. The back is open, the front holds your foot, and that’s the whole job. The first time I left my daughter’s house without sitting down, I stood on her front step feeling like I’d got away with something. Ask any woman who has ever balanced on one leg at the marae door. This is the thing.

By the door with everyone else’s, facing the right way. You step in on the way out.

I can take the bin out, post a letter and be back inside before my husband has tied his first shoe.

Janet W., Ormond

2

FROM THE FRONT, THEY’RE A PROPER SHOE

The trick is that all the easy is hidden round 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 and neat stitching along the seams. Nobody at that hui was looking at Huia’s feet and thinking comfort shoe. They were thinking, as I was, where are those from? You can wear them to town, to a café on the Esplanade, to church, and nothing about them says slipper.

On, with my navy trousers. A proper shoe from the front.

They look smart with trousers and nobody guesses how easy they are. I have had comments at church.

Margaret T., Wainui

SEE IF YOUR SIZE IS STILL IN STOCK

3

THE STRAP KEEPS THEM ON YOUR FOOT

An open-backed shoe usually announces you down the street, slapping at your heel like a jandal. These stay put, and it’s 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 hasn’t needed touching since the first morning, and I’ve not once walked out of a shoe, which is more than I can say for every other backless pair I’ve owned.

The side strap and its little dark buckle. Set it once and forget it’s there.

No slipping and no slapping when I walk, which every backless pair I owned before did from day one.

Judith P., Kereta

4

THE FOOTBED HAS A SHAPE TO IT

Inside 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 after a long day helping in the kitchen at a hui, which is exactly when I used to notice the opposite. It’s 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 straight away. I wear mine from breakfast to teatime.

Lynette R., Tolaga Bay

5

THE SOLE IS READY FOR A TAIRĀWHITI SPRING

Underneath is a thick black sole with a deep tread, the sort that holds on to a wet footpath. A spring here means a warm morning, a shower at lunchtime and wet grass by the afternoon, and between the dewy lawn at the marae, the concrete path down to the wharekai and the footpaths in town after the rain, I’m not interested in going over. These are steady on all of it. And that thick sole puts a bit of cushion between you and a hard kitchen 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.

Pauline E., Manutuke

6

THEY GO WITH EVERYTHING, AND THEY COME IN EVERYONE’S SIZE

Brown goes with nearly everything I own. Trousers, skirts, my good black for church and my gardening clothes all look tidier with these underneath. They make them in black and tan as well, the same shoe in every colour. And here’s a detail I hadn’t seen before: the sizes run from [size range], which isn’t a ladies’ range. It’s an everyone range. Rawiri tried mine on in the hallway and said nothing, which from Rawiri is high praise. I’ve already gone back for the black, and I’m keeping a close eye on the shoe rack by the door.

Bought the brown for me and a black pair for my husband. His have barely been off his feet since.

Wendy A., Makaraka

THE ANNELIES, AGAINST THE SHOES YOU’VE BEEN BUYING

You can find an easy shoe for not much money anywhere. I know, because the bottom of my wardrobe is full of the evidence. Here’s the difference, laid out plainly.

MOST EASY SHOES

Laces and stiff heels you have to sit down to fight

Backless pairs that slap and flap down the street

Flat footbeds with no shape at all

Thin soles that skid on a wet footpath

Look exactly like what they are

THE ANNELIES

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 Annelies shoes are $89.95 NZD, down from $225.00 NZD.

 

I’ll pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this run is being cleared in the spring sale to make room for the summer stock, and once a size is gone, it’s gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that a mark-down like that is usually where I start asking what’s wrong with something, and after all the wearing I’ve given mine, I haven’t 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.

4.2 ★

FROM 300+ REVIEWS

NZ 7 to 14

FULL SIZE RANGE

FREE

NZ DELIVERY

On the shelf by the front door, under the keys. Ready for whoever’s going out next.

If you’re still sitting down on the edge of the deck every time you leave someone’s house, and you’re tired of choosing between a fight and a jandal, this is the pair I’d stand you into myself, while your size is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.

Aroha

THE ANNELIES SLIP ON SHOES

4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

$225.00 NZD

$89.95 NZD

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 NZ 7 to 14

Free NZ delivery 

SEE IF YOUR SIZE IS STILL IN STOCK

Sale on now, making room for the summer stock. The popular designs go first.

About the writer. Aroha Ngāta is 69 and lives in Gisborne with with her husband Rawiri. She is a customer, not a shoe writer, and she was not paid to write this letter.

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