Our Slippers - another step in the right direction.

Iona Wool Felted Slippers

We’re pretty rigorous when we’re grading the fleece to produce our hand knitting yarn. We end up with an almost equal amount of wool that hasn’t quite made the grade, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good wool, it just means that its properties are better suited to other applications. It pains us to throw away these strong and healthy fibres - so we don’t. We use it to produce our weaving yarns and craft yarns, where the handle of the yarn is less critical but strength and condition just as vital, and we’re always investigating other ways we might utilise this amazing raw material.

"Felt footwear is united with nature – pure wool materials ensure that the footwear does not contaminate the environment. Wool felt feels both soft and warm on the feet and yet very light and breathable."

When low cost airlines began offering flights linking Scandinavia and Scotland around the turn of the millennium, relationships blossomed that were previously unattainable without a boat, a compass and a rare sense of adventure. I’m not sure what the Scandinavians gained from the ensuing cultural exchange, but we got slippers. Incredible, elegant slippers, made of beautiful felted wool rather than the collapsed, plastic pretenders we had embarrassingly been slipping into of an evening. Suddenly, we were all sliding around on our polished wooden floorboards like Torvill and Dean.

Ever since launching Iona Wool in 2012, it has been our dream to produce a variant of these beautiful felted carriages utilising our own wool. It took years of research, but finally, in Autumn 2018 we found a partner in Finland who were up for experimenting with our unique mix of breeds. The Lahtinen family have been making felted boots and slippers since 1921, and their methods have remained essentially unchanged since then. 

From start to finish the process takes around 8 days, and a considerable amount of hard graft. Machines can help with the initial felting, but when it comes to shaping and forming the shoe, there’s just no substitute for skilled hands and strong arms.

"The felting process is like a manipulated chaos, which is based on the fact that the wool fibres become tangled. The felter tries to influence the process with machinery ensuring that the tangling of fibres progresses in the desired way. At the beginning, the slab of a felt boot is almost two times larger than the final intended product. The slab is felted until the required thickness and compactness has been achieved. At the end, the felt slab is moulded on a last and left to dry. During this phase, the felt is stretched into the desired form”. 

Jukka Lahtinen

It’s quite incredible to see our fluffy wool transformed into this rigid, dense material that supports the foot so effortlessly. If you’ve never experienced this type of footwear - the felted wool is around 6-8mm thick and surprisingly stiff, with crisp cut edges on the tops and a firm, fuzzy finish elsewhere. Each shoe is substantial - strong and durable, but light as a feather and very, very warm

Besides the design and quality, knowing where something comes from - really comes from, is a huge advantage. A large part of the value in all our Iona Wool products lies in the care and husbandry of the animals provided by the island’s crofting families. That value exists before the fleece is even sheared off the animals back, and we do our absolute best to honour that with everything that happens thereafter.

So, while any natural wool product might be step in the right direction, an Iona Wool product is an unassailable leap in the right direction. Transforming and adding value to an incredible raw material that was previously discarded as waste, through skill and endeavour, and minimal carbon footprint.

To sole, or not to sole………

Our felt slippers come with or without a rubber sole- a rubber sole will lengthen their lifespan and provide valuable traction, but for me the naked variant is the ultimate. There’s something magical about wearing a shoe made solely (!) from wool; they feel alive under your feet and tread silently and effortlessly. What you lose in terms of all weather, inside/outsideness, you gain in being able to swing your feet up onto the sofa without any guilt. That said, I own both, and would very much miss the increased range of my rubber soled ones. If you had to choose, a rubber soled pair might be the more practical first choice, but only to set you on the right path while you save up for a second pair!

SHOP SLIPPERS