I Almost Didn't Order These Sandals. Here's What Changed My Mind.

A note from a reader who almost gave up on summer sandals, and the small coastal label that quietly changed her mind.

By Jessica Bennett - Charleston, SC

POSTED JUNE 6, 2026 · 7 MIN READ

I am 63 years old, and I have absolutely no business getting emotional about a pair of sandals on a Tuesday morning.

But here we are.

There is a woman in my walking group called Linda. She is seventy one, sharp as a tack, and a few weeks ago she showed up at the trail head in a pair of soft blue sandals that stopped two of us mid stride. We all just stared at them. By the end of our four miles I had asked her three times where they came from.

She told me about a small coastal label called Claire & June Malibu that has been quietly making sandals for women our age for the last few years. They are running a beach season sale right now, and Linda had ordered hers the week before.

I went home, looked it up, and almost closed the tab. I have been burned by enough internet shopping in the last decade to be deeply suspicious of any small label I have not heard of. But something about Linda's sandals kept nagging at me. So I poured a glass of iced tea, sat down on the couch, and did the thing I had not done with a footwear brand in a very long time. I read.

The bit that got me

They are called the Glyresan. They have a cushioned orthopedic footbed, which is the part that surprised me, because almost nothing at the price point of a typical sandal actually has real arch support anymore. It is almost always a flat insole, or what they call "comfort," which is mostly a thin layer of foam designed to feel okay in the store for about ten minutes.

I had completely forgotten what real arch support does until I started reading about it again. Real arch support holds the heel where it belongs in a way that no foam insole ever will. It does not slip out when the foot moves. It does not leave the calves complaining after a long walk. It actually feels better the more you wear it, like good walking shoes that have been broken in over a few summers.

The other thing I noticed was the design. A soft cross-strap front with elastic multi-straps, a small adjustable buckle on the side, a lightweight sole that sits just right under a real foot. There is no part of me, at 63, that wants to limp back to the car by 3 PM. I want to walk.

There is no part of me, at 63, that wants to limp back to the car by 3 PM. I want to walk.

I read about thirty of the reviews before I even looked at the price. 4.8 stars across 847 women, almost all of them my age, almost all of them using the same word, which was finally.

→ Read about the Glyresan

I ordered the Glyresan

I ordered two. I will be honest, I did not plan to. I went on the website meaning to order one in beige to test it, and by the time I got to the checkout I had also added the soft blue that Linda had been wearing. The beach season sale brings the sandals down to $55.95 from $140.00, and the more pairs you grab the more comes off, all the way to 25 percent.

About a week later, both pairs arrived in a small kraft paper parcel, tied with a bit of natural twine, with a handwritten note tucked inside. Thank you for trying us. Hope these earn their place at your feet. June.

Lifting the blue out first - the same color Linda had been wearing. June's note was tucked inside.

I put the beige pair on with white linen trousers for lunch with my sister Eleanor and she said, you look summer. She is sixty five. She does not lie about shoes.

What I noticed in the first week

Three things stood out to me, and I have written them down because I knew I would want to remember.

1. They do not pinch. I wore the blue on the second hottest day we have had this year, walking from the car to the grocery store and back, and not once did the straps dig in or the heel slip out. That has not happened in a sandal I have owned in at least ten years.

2. They got softer. After a week of wear the footbed had molded slightly to the shape of my foot, the way good leather shoes used to before everything became plastic. Lightweight, supportive, and somehow more flattering than they were the day they arrived.

3. People notice. My sister asked. My hairdresser asked. The woman behind me in the line at the post office asked. Three people in three days, all wanting to know where I got them.

Now, about the price

I want to talk about the price, because it was the thing that almost stopped me ordering in the first place. $55.95 for a real orthopedic sandal with adjustable straps is, frankly, suspicious. I sat at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee and wrote out what I had paid, or seen, for similar sandals in the last few years. The note still sits next to my keys.

• Mephisto Helen, $230
• Vionic Hadley, $129
• Claire & June Malibu Glyresan, $55.95

And underneath, in slightly larger letters, the only thing I could think to write. ...how??

The note I scribbled next to my iced tea, trying to make sense of it.

I emailed the boutique. I figured if it was a scam, the email would bounce or someone would not bother to write back. The reply came the next morning from June herself.

"This sale is the lowest price you'll see on the Glyresan all year. We're a small team, and we'd rather these sandals go to women who'll actually walk in them than sit in our warehouse waiting for autumn. The next time you'll see this price is next summer, if we're lucky."

What I'd tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting on my back porch right now with a glass of iced tea, and you had asked me whether you should order a pair, this is what I would say.

I would say that summer sandals have, for ten years, been quietly designed for women in their twenties and sold to women in their sixties. I had genuinely started to think that comfort and beauty had divorced each other somewhere around the time I turned fifty, and that I was supposed to pick one. The Glyresan is the first pair I have owned in a decade that has changed my mind.

I would tell you that the beige is the most flattering thing I have ever put on my feet, and that the soft blue is the one people compliment in the grocery store. I would tell you that Eleanor has already ordered the black because she says it will work with her jeans through the autumn.

I would tell you that my daughter Emma, who has not bought me a piece of footwear in her adult life, sent me a screenshot of the beige with the message, "Mom. Read this. I am buying you the beige pair." And then she ordered one for herself.

I would tell you that the popular colors are already starting to thin out, that the blue was almost sold out in the larger sizes the day I checked again, and that the beach season sale is the lowest it goes all year. I would tell you that I bought two, that I have worn one of them six times in two weeks, and that I am genuinely, for the first time in maybe ten years, looking forward to a long walk.

If you have been quietly looking for a summer sandal that does not punish you for being a real woman in real heat, this is the closest thing I have found in years.

While the sizes are still in stock.

— Jessica