Although, like many dress items, the definition of sandals is indistinct, they are generally perceived as outdoor footwear comprising a sole held to the foot by straps or bands passing over the instep and sometimes around the ankle.

Made of leather, rope, leaves and rushes, wood, rubber and woven fabric, according to time and place, a key feature of sandals throughout history is that they leave much of the foot exposed. They are therefore most comfortable and practical in hot climates and during warm seasons, although they have also been adopted as fashion accessories.

Basic sandals were used in primitive societies, the earliest surviving examples dating from c8500-7200 BC discovered in 1938 in Fort Rock Cave, central Oregon, USA. The great civilisations of Africa, the Middle East and Mediterranean wore sandals, including the ancient Egyptians who favoured sandals fashioned from palm leaves and papyrus.

The term ‘sandal’ derives from Greek sandalon and the ancient Greeks distinguished between baxeae made of willow leaves, twigs, or fibres worn by comic actors and philosophers and the cothurnus, a boot-style sandal covering the lower leg, associated with actors, horsemen, hunters and, generally, men of rank and authority. Sandals were worn throughout much of the Roman Empire among soldiers, gladiators and charioteers and the wider toga- and tunic-wearing civilian populace.

In cooler regions sandals were less significant, although they entered fashion in the early-1800s when the vogue for neo-classical dress inspired the adoption of light pumps tied around the foot with ribbons – footwear termed ‘Grecian sandals’ by the Regency fashion press. Soft Victorian shoes and slippers, especially heel-less or novelty styles with insteps cut out in bands were sometimes termed ‘sandals’, although they bore little resemblance to the pioneering leather sandals adopted by free-thinkers Edward Carpenter, August John and others moving in early-1900s Bohemian circles. Children first wore T-bar sandals around this time, but only during the 1930s, when shorter hemlines, shorts and bare legs were widely accepted, did open-toed sandals become a regular feature of summer dress.