It was never the heel that made my feet tired.

On the sandal whose ankle strap does the holding — so your toes stop quietly gripping to keep the shoe on.

By Margaret Ellison · Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Posted August 2026 · 6 min read

I am 63, and until this summer I believed what everybody believes: that shoes hurt because of the heel. Take the height away and your feet will be fine. So for years I bought flat sandals, and for years my feet still ached by four in the afternoon, and I never once questioned the arithmetic.

Then a woman at a shoe counter told me something I have not stopped thinking about. If there is nothing holding the shoe onto the back of your foot, your toes do it. Every step, all day, quietly curling to keep the thing from sliding off. You never notice you are doing it. You only notice that you are tired.

It was my daughter Sarah, up in Boston, who told me to go and find a pair with a proper strap and look at a small family boutique here in South Carolina. Before I tell you what it did, I think you should read the Clarke family's letter first.

The Clarke family runs a small boutique here in South Carolina, family-run since 1986 — three generations, mother to daughter. The sandals are called the Stacey, and their letter walks through the handful of things they refused to compromise on. I am going to let their words carry it, because they say it better than I could.

1The strap holds the shoe on, so your toes do not

A mule or a slide has nothing at the back, which means the only thing keeping it on your foot is your own toes gripping — every step, for as long as you are wearing it. It is why a flat sandal can leave you more tired than a heel. We put a proper strap around the ankle with a buckle, so the shoe stays attached and your foot is free to simply be a foot.

2A block heel, and a low one

The height comes from a square block set under the heel rather than from a point, so your weight lands on a broad base and stays there. It is the difference between choosing where you put your foot and hoping. Low enough to walk a full day in, and enough of a heel that you are not in a flat shoe — which almost nobody offers you both of.

3A wide band across the toes, not a thin strip

A narrow strap concentrates the whole pressure of a step into one line across the top of your foot, and by the evening you can see exactly where it has been. A wide band spreads that same pressure across a hand's width of soft suede. Nothing digs in and nothing leaves a mark, which matters more the longer the day goes on.

4The ring is what makes them pretty

Everything above is comfort, and comfort on its own is how you end up in a beige shoe that announces your age from across the street. So there is a suede ring set over the instep, joining the toe band to the ankle strap. It is doing a structural job and it is also the reason these look like a shoe you chose rather than a shoe you settled for.

5A square toe, so nothing is pressed together

The front of the shoe is cut square and left open, which gives your toes the width they actually are instead of narrowing them toward a point. A pointed toe box is where most of the real damage in a woman's shoe gets done, quietly, over years. There is nothing at the front of this one to press anything anywhere.

6Six colors, and every half size from 5 to 13

The Stacey comes in six colors and the one you see on me is the red, which I would never have picked and now reach for first. Sizes run from a 5 to a 13 and every half size in between is made — which sounds dull until you are the woman who has spent thirty years being told they only do whole sizes and to take the bigger one.

The Stacey, against the sandals in your closet

Why they're clearing them now

They priced the Stacey at $179.95 when they launched, and they sold at that price all season. But for America's 250th, the Clarke family wanted to give something back to the women who have kept their doors open since 1986 — so every pair is going out at a third of what it was.

Mine arrived a few days later in a box on the bed. I put them straight on and walked around the kitchen in them, which is how you find out.

I do not usually write things like this. But I spent about fifteen years buying flatter and flatter shoes to solve a problem that was never about height at all, and one strap at the back of my foot fixed it. If your feet ache by four in the afternoon in shoes that are supposed to be comfortable, I hope you find your size before they clear.

— Margaret Ellison · Mount Pleasant, SC

This is a personal account from a Clarke Family customer. Margaret was not paid to write it. · The Clarke Family · Family Fashion · South Carolina, since 1986 · Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee.