There’s been a lot of fusions between dress shoes and soft sneakers done through the years. Now Santoni has launched a new range called Easy that sort of manage to to do it to the extreme, with the most traditional designs turned into lightweight slip-on shoes with super soft soles.
Business goes well for the Italian company Santoni. After the pandemic sales have grown about 20% 2022 and 2023, and even if it slowed down a bit this year it’s still on it’s way to a 10% increase to a yearly revenue of 125 million euro. They continuously introduce shoe news both on the men’s and women’s side, and open up new stores. The latest shoe news is a line they call Easy, which they present as one of their bigger innovations.
One part of the range is a newly developed sole and combined heel, made in a very soft rubber that is highly cushioning. It’s combined with an insole made from a special foam that blends stable elements such as leather with softer and more elastic ones. The lining is made of soft, perforated goat nappa leather, and upper of relatively thin fine full grain calf leather. Weight is extremely low, the shoes weigh less than 300 gram in a size 42.. Then, all models have sort of hidden elastics to make it easy to put the shoes on.
The chelsea model from the Easy range, with hidden elastics and the light soft sole.
Initially there’s three models (more will come later). The chelsea is not that special, even if the elastics is sort of hidden below a larger piece of leather. But the penny loafer has an elastic hidden under the tongue to make them extra easy to attach. And the oxford is most cleverly designed, where the whole facings are placed over the elastic. Probably the most actual lace-up oxford looking version of a lazyman I’ve ever seen (even if I’m sure they’ve been inspired by someone else, as often is the case). I’m sure we’ll see other versions inspired by this pattern by other brands soon.
The oxford with the very clever design of the facing, which looks more or less like a regular oxford but is built with a wide elastic strap.
They are priced at €650, a bit below Santoni’s welted shoes, but of course quite a lot for a pair of cemented shoes. There’s probably a bunch of people who still think it’s worth it. As I’ve written about before, the increased cushioning in shoes has it’s problems. But it’s no doubt that it’s what more and more people are looking for, and if one are after really soft dressy shoes, the Easy range has shoes that surely looks nice and classic, unlike many other options.
The combined soles and heels offers really soft cushioning.
The penny loafer also has a hidden elastic opening. All pictures: Santoni
Cool sole and facing.