Salt-Water Sandal

The Salt-Water Original is an open-toed sandal of broad, flat leather straps that cross and interlace over the front of the foot, with a strap rising from the toes to a buckled band round the ankle, a separate strap behind the heel, and a thin rubber sole stitched to the upper all the way round. It looks like a child's summer shoe because it began as one, and the same design runs from baby sizes to adult ones. The leather is sealed so that it can be worn in the sea and washed by hand; the buckles are rust-proof. Hence the name.

It was made first in St Louis, Missouri, in 1944. Leather was short during the war, and Walter Hoy, an immigrant from Norwich, used offcuts left over from cutting out military boots to make a pair of sandals for his daughter, Margery. Other St Louis families asked for pairs for their own children, and Hoy's small shoe company was in business. A bronzed early pair, worn by Margery's brother, is still kept at the factory.

The company has stayed with the family. Margery ran it until she was over eighty, handing over to her son Ric Gebel in 2017; his daughter works there too. The early 2000s were lean, and the firm could not find enough people to staff an unair-conditioned factory, so part of the work went to China. St Louis kept the special colours, the vintage styles and the emergency runs of whatever had sold out, usually tan.

The sandal's second life came from Britain. In 2009 Rachael Laine, on maternity leave, saw it on a blog, persuaded the Hoys to let her sell it in Europe and added a hyphen to the name because a clothing brand had taken 'Saltwater'. It has since sold by the hundred thousand. The Hoys' rule, Ric Gebel says, is to keep making the same thing.