The Original Luxury Flip-Flop Is 80 Years Old & Handmade In Hawaii
The hubbub around all these insanely expensive designer flip-flops — forget three figures, how about four!? — is unsurprisingly lacking any discussion of quality. That's part of the pleasurable indignation being stoked, to be fair: these are the simplest, cheapest shoes imaginable and yet they cost how much?
It's knowingly ridiculous. There's something to be said about a nice sandal and then there's... this.
And then there's Island Slipper.
Island Slipper has been making the OG luxury flip-flop for nearly 80 years, when Japanese expats opened a sandal factory in mid-'40s Honolulu. To this day, all Island Slipper flip-flops are still made by hand in Hawaii. They are to flip-flops as Birkenstock is to all other sandals.
In fact, it feels a little insulting to call Island Slipper's shoes "flip-flops"; it prefers the term "slipper" because it's more accurate to say that it specializes in super-soft all-day island shoes.
Island Slipper has calmly ridden out the designer flip-flop frenzy from a beachside perch, minding its own business in the way that many family-owned operations tend to do.
Its slippers range in price from $130 to $170, which is a steeper cost than your average disposable plastic flip-flop but that's because these handcrafted slippers are not your average disposable plastic flip-flop. When we talk luxury flip-flops, this is what we ought to be talking about. Because no one else, no designer label or fashion house, is making shoes like this.
Your average Island Slipper, the classic thong, is made of a suede-lined EVA foam insole atop a grippy rubber sole unit, specially shaped for arch support and foot alignment. The reinforced thong is shaped from leather. These are flip-flops — er, slippers — made to last, considered with a level of made-to-order intent that aligns them as a summertime counterpart to the benchmade shoe. It even produces a slipper out of Horween leather.
Island Slipper's anatomically contoured, slow-made slippers are inherently fashion agnostic. Sunny surfer comfort is their actual aim.
In spite of that — or more likely due to it — Island Slipper's intentional process has attracted a host of stylish collaborators, including street-savvy lines like thisisneverthat, nonnative, SOPHNET, and Stüssy. Yes, that Stüssy: almost 15 years ago, Island Slipper produced handsome tonal flops for the Japanese branch of Stüssy.
That influence remains to this day. As part of its Summer 2025 collection, Stüssy produced its own leather-strapped and suede-soled $100 flops. The leather toe post, the suede footbed, and even the stamped heel branding are clearly borrowed from Island Slipper's original. It's a Californian thing but also a Hawaiian thing.
That's no matter. Fashion comes and fashion goes. Island Slipper's truly luxurious flip-flops are eternal.
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