A Letter From the Founder: The Vera
I own eleven pairs of shoes. I wear two.
On the six things I would not compromise on when I chose the Vera, what a square toe actually does to a foot that has been walking for sixty years, and why it is $69.95 under The Final Edit.
I counted them properly last winter, when I finally cleared out the hall cupboard. Eleven pairs. Two of them get worn. The other nine are a museum of good intentions: the pointed ones that looked wonderful in the shop and were unwearable by lunch, the flat ones so shapeless I only put them on to take the bins out, and one very expensive pair I have worn exactly twice, both times sitting down.
I do not think I am unusual in this. Every woman I have raised it with since has told me some version of the same story, usually with a laugh and then a slightly embarrassed pause. We are all buying our shoes twice. Once for how they look, and once, later and quietly, for how they feel. And then most mornings we reach for the same two pairs anyway.
We are all buying our shoes twice. Once for how they look, and once, later, for how they feel.
So when I went looking for a flat to put our name on, I was not looking for a comfortable shoe. There are plenty of those and most of them announce it from across the room. I was looking for the other thing — a shoe you would actually choose to put on, that also lets you stay out for the afternoon.
By the front door, where the two pairs I actually wear live.
It took a while. What follows is the list I would not bend on.
The six things I would not compromise on
1A square toe, because a foot is not a triangle
This is the one that matters most and the one nobody talks about. A pointed shoe does not politely suggest your toes move inward; it makes them. If you have ever taken shoes off at the end of a day and found your foot has a shape it did not have that morning, that is why. The Vera is cut square across the front, so your toes sit where they already sit. It is also, as it happens, the more modern shape — but I would have chosen it either way.
2One soft detail, and nothing that digs in
Most flats in this price range decorate themselves with hardware — a buckle, a chain, a metal bar across the top of the foot. It photographs well and it presses on the exact part of your foot that swells on a warm day. The Vera has a padded leather rosette instead: soft, slightly sculptural, the only ornament on the shoe. It is the thing people ask about, and it cannot dig into anything.
The rosette is padded leather, not metal. Nothing on this shoe presses.
3A footbed you feel on the first step, not the fiftieth
A great many flats are a layer of leather and then the pavement. The Vera has a cushioned footbed you notice the moment you stand up in it, which is exactly when you should. I will not pretend it is an orthopaedic shoe, because it is not one and I would not sell it as one. What I will say is that it is the difference between a shoe you take off in the car and a shoe you forget you are wearing.
4A sole that bends where your foot bends
Hold a flat by the heel and try to fold it. A good one gives just behind the ball of the foot, where you actually push off. A bad one is rigid all the way through, and your foot spends the day fighting it. The Vera's sole is flexible through the forefoot and firm under the heel, which is the right way round.
The low heel, and the slim sole that gives through the forefoot.
5Leather that gives where your foot is widest
A leather upper does something a synthetic one never learns to do: it takes the shape of the particular foot inside it. Three weeks in, the Vera is your shoe rather than a shoe. If you have a wider foot, or one that changes over the course of a hot day — and after sixty, most of us have both — this is not a small thing.
6Two colours that finish what you already own
Black and a soft brown. That is the whole range and it is deliberate. Between them they go under everything already hanging in your wardrobe, which means the decision each morning stops being a decision. Most of the women who buy one end up with both, and I understand entirely why.
Black and brown. Between them, they go with what you already own.
The part I was not sure about
The rosette. I will be honest and say I argued about it, mostly with myself. My first thought when I saw it was that it was a little much for me — that I am not really a woman who wears a flower on her shoe, and that we would be safer with something plainer.
I was wrong, and I was wrong in a specific way that I think is worth telling you about. Plain flats disappear. That is their whole problem: they are the shoe you wear when you have given up on the outfit. The rosette is the reason the Vera reads as a choice rather than a concession — and it is soft, so it costs you nothing to wear it. It is also, without fail, the only thing anyone comments on.
On the foot, it is smaller than it looks in a photograph.
See if your size is still in stock →The Vera, against the flats you have been buying
- Pointed toe that narrows your foot
- Buckle or metal bar across the top
- Thin leather over a hard sole
- Rigid from heel to toe
- Comfortable or presentable
- Worn twice, then kept out of guilt
- Square toe, cut where toes sit
- Padded leather rosette, nothing rigid
- Cushioned footbed underfoot
- Flexible forefoot, firm heel
- Both, which was the entire point
- The pair by the door
Why it is $69.95 under The Final Edit
A leather flat with a cushioned footbed sits at a hundred and fifty dollars and upward in most Australian shops, and closer to two hundred if the name on the box is one you would recognise. The Vera is $69.95 during The Final Edit, down from $174.95.
I would rather tell you plainly why than let you wonder. We sell direct, so there is no department store taking its share. And The Final Edit is exactly what it sounds like — we are clearing the styles we are not carrying into next year so we can bring in the ones we are. The price is the honest consequence of both of those things, not a permanent position.
One more thing, on sizing, because shoes bought online live or die on it. The Vera is listed in Australian sizes, AU 4 to AU 10, half sizes included — not converted from an American or European chart and left for you to work out. It fits true to size. If you are an AU 8 in the shops, order the AU 8.
And if it is not right when it arrives, send it back within thirty days and we will refund you in full. No explanation required. I would rather you sent them back than kept a tenth pair you never wear.
Vera™ — Square-Toe Rosette Leather Flats
★★★★★ 4.7 based on 935 reviews
$174.95$69.95
- Soft leather upper, square toe
- Padded leather rosette, no hardware
- Cushioned footbed, flexible sole
- Black or brown · AU 4–AU 10
- 30 day money-back guarantee
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