Every pair of RIZZ leather sandals begins as a single piece of hide and ends as a finished product after passing through the hands of three or four craftsmen. No two pairs are identical — the natural grain varies, the hand-finishing leaves subtle marks, and the break-in moulds to the wearer's foot over time. This article is a transparent account of how we make our sandals, why we make them this way, and what that means for the person wearing them.
Step 1 — Hide Selection
We source full-grain cowhide from established tanneries. Full-grain means the outermost layer of the hide is preserved — the part with the tightest, most durable fibre structure and natural grain pattern. Cheaper sandals use corrected-grain leather (sanded flat, then embossed with an artificial pattern) or split leather (the inner layer, weaker and more absorbent). We reject any hide with scars, inconsistent thickness, or excessive stretch.
Step 2 — Pattern Cutting
Our patterns are hand-drawn on card and refined over dozens of sample pairs. We cut each sandal component — footbed, straps, toe post, heel strap — from the hide using steel-rule dies and a clicker press. The orientation of the cut matters: we align straps along the backbone (the tightest, most consistent part of the hide) where they will bear the most tension.
Step 3 — Skiving and Edge Work
Skiving is the process of thinning the edges of a leather piece so it folds or joins without a bulky ridge. On strap ends and buckle folds, we skive by hand with a sharp blade. Edge work — bevelling, burnishing, and painting the cut edge — gives our sandals their clean profile and prevents fraying. This is one of the steps that separates handcraft from machine production: a machine can cut, but hand-burnishing an edge until it is glass-smooth takes skill that cannot be automated cheaply.
Step 4 — Assembly and Stitching
Components are assembled around a last — a foot-shaped form in the target size. Straps are attached to the footbed using a combination of contact cement and saddle stitching. Saddle stitching uses two needles and a single thread in a locked stitch: if one side breaks, the other holds. Machine lock-stitch, by contrast, unravels from a single break point. Our thread is linen, waxed for water resistance.
Step 5 — Sole Construction
The sole is our most labour-intensive component. We use a layered construction: an insole of firm vegetable-tanned leather, a midsole of dense rubber for shock absorption, and an outsole of textured rubber for grip. The layers are bonded with heat-activated cement, then stitched through the welt. The finished sole is trimmed flush with the upper and the edge burnished flat.
Step 6 — Finishing and Quality Check
The finished sandal is cleaned, conditioned with a neutral leather balm, and inspected for stitch tension, alignment, and edge consistency. Any pair that does not pass our four-point check — stitching, edge work, sole bond, strap alignment — is returned for correction before it leaves the workshop. We do not ship seconds.
Why Chittagong?
Chittagong has a leatherworking tradition that predates industrialisation. The craftsmen in our workshop have often learned from a parent or grandparent. That inherited knowledge — of how leather behaves at different humidities, of how to read a hide's grain, of when to use the awl versus the needle — is not something you can import or replicate in a factory. It is the reason our sandals feel and age differently from anything made on a production line.
See the full range of handcrafted leather sandals, or learn more about how we work on our manufacturing page.