I have a confession to make: I despise shoes. And I don’t mean that in the cute, Carrie Bradshaw, I-have-a-closet-full-of-heels kind of way, but with a deep, unshakable hatred of foot prisons — the kind with zippers, laces, and the audacity to require socks. Sneakers? Too much commitment. Boots? A sentence for your ankles. And heels? We don’t speak of them. What I love — truly, spiritually — are sandals. There’s something almost poetic about footwear that neither suffocates nor contorts. A shoe that lets your feet breathe, and doesn’t ask you to perform athleticism just to get through your day. Had Cinderella worn sandals instead of glass heels, she would have ditched Prince Charming and instead started a wellness blog, pioneering the barefoot movement Instagram content. And don’t even try to argue with me about sneakers. We, as a society, have been gaslit into believing that lace-up foot prisons with synthetic soles are the height of comfort. That’s a lie perpetuated by men in Gore-Tex and resale markets with trust funds. I refuse to be a part of it. The sneaker industrial complex Let’s talk about sneaker culture for a moment. There are people (grown adults, with taxes and bills to pay) who spend obscene amounts of money on sneakers they never plan to wear. These shoes sit in glass cases, shrink-wrapped like a museum exhibit of capitalism’s finest achievement. They don’t touch grass — literally. These sneakers cost more than rent and are treated with more reverence than family heirlooms. You can’t even wear them in the rain. You can’t scuff them. You certainly can’t live in them the way you do in sandals. Sandals expect nothing from you. They get ugly. They age with you. They don’t judge your choice of nail polish (or lack thereof). They don’t sneak up with blisters mid-commute. You slide in, feel the air kiss your toes, and go about your day in liberated, friction-free bliss. Sneakers, on the other hand, demand to be kept pristine, admired from afar. One is a relationship; the other is an art installation with a shoelace. The ugly and the uncomfortable Look, I know sandals aren’t for everyone. Some people enjoy being part of a global subculture that revolves around sneaker drops, resale markets, and apps that notify you when Kanye West’s ghost brand releases a new sole made from recycled disappointment. But let’s stop pretending. Most sneakers, especially the “cool” ones, look like swollen foot pillows. Giant, over-engineered hunks of rubber that belong more on a lunar expedition than at brunch. And the colours? Either clinical whites that stain the minute you step outside, or neon nightmares that glow in the dark even when you may not want them to. By contrast, sandals are minimalist. Some people call them “ugly,” but I find them refreshing. There’s no over-design. No midsole drama. No weird acronym that refers to a patented air-suspension foam that wears out in six months anyway. Sneakers are sold to us as ergonomic marvels, performance-enhancing miracles, but are they even that comfortable? Try standing in them for 12 hours at a wedding and tell me they still feel like “walking on clouds.” Spoiler: they don’t. They feel like regret. Let's not forget the attached fine print — socks. No one warns you that every pair of sneakers demands a curated wardrobe of foot garments: no-show socks that do, in fact, show or thick gym socks that turn your feet into human humidifiers. It’s a scam. Then, there's the lace situation. Every pair of sneakers is a passive-aggressive challenge to your fine motor skills. Tie them too tight, and your feet go numb. Too loose, and you are flapping around like a toddler at a birthday party. The bigger question is, what are we trying to protect our toes from, exactly? We don’t live in a medieval battlefield. Most of us are navigating office corridors, metro platforms, or the emotional minefield of social interaction. A breathable shoe isn’t a luxury, it’s a right. Closed shoes treat feet like something to be hidden, something shameful. Sandals, however, are radical in their honesty. They say: These are my toes. Take it or leave it. The first time I wore proper sandals that supported my feet and my dignity, I felt like I had joined a secret club. One where people didn’t have to contort their toes or negotiate with their arches. Sandals are for everyone, even Barbie I have been told sandals are “inappropriate” for certain occasions. I reject that premise. I have worn them to long-haul flights (because I care about circulation), to weddings (because I care about my spinal health), and once, disastrously, made the mistake of wearing them to a family function where someone asked if I had “forgotten to change.” No, Aunty, I didn’t forget. I chose peace. I chose comfort. I chose not to lose circulation in my feet for your cousin’s daughter's graduation. Let’s not forget that even Barbie, the queen of pointy heels, chose Birkenstocks in the end. In the 2023 movie, Margot Robbie’s Barbie is offered a choice: go back to her high-heel fantasy or face the real world in a pair of flat, open-toed freedom shoes. She picks the sandals. It was a cinematic mic-drop. The most glamorous woman in the doll universe said, "I choose comfort." That moment was for us, the sandal-wearing, heel-hating, arch-support-seeking few. The brave and the blister-free. So yes, I hate sneakers. I hate their neediness, their maintenance demands, their hype culture, their sock co-dependency. Give me sandals — messy, durable and honest — any day. I will take fresh air over foam, skin over synthetic, reality over resale value.
