Braids dried plant fiber into the lightest, airiest upper made, strictly for dry weather.
Also called: jute, raffia, woven natural fiber
The basics
What to know about straw
Straw in footwear is a family name for woven dry plant fibers: jute from plant stems, raffia from palm leaves, seagrass, and twisted paper cord that imitates all three. The weave does the work. Gaps between strands let air through freely, weight stays close to nothing, and the texture signals summer at a glance. The material lives on wedges, flats and warm-weather bags.
Worn dry, straw behaves well. The fibers hold their braid, flex enough for comfort, and shed sand, which falls out of the weave instead of grinding in the way it does with fabric. Raffia runs softest and most flexible of the group, jute coarser and stronger, seagrass in between with a faint natural sheen. Rough edges at a strap line soften after a few wears. Press a thumb into the weave before you buy: a tight braid springs back with no gaps, while a loose one holds the dent and starts fraying at the toe within a season.
Water is the single disqualifying condition. Wet plant fiber swells, loses its set shape, dries slowly and unevenly, and can mildew if put away damp. A soaked straw shoe rarely recovers its original form. Sweat counts as much as rain in a closed style, so bare feet in a fully woven flat shorten its life. Stored dry and stuffed with paper to hold shape, the same shoe keeps for many summers.
In photos
Straw on real products
See this option on different products. Open a photo for a larger view, or select the name to read its guide.
The fibers are agricultural. Jute is retted, meaning soaked, out of the stems of a tropical annual plant and spun into yarn or rope. Raffia is stripped from the leaf membranes of the raffia palm in long, naturally flexible ribbons; seagrass is cut, dried and twisted into cord. Makers braid or weave the prepared strands into sheets or long tapes, shape them over a shoe form, and stitch the layers, often through a fabric lining that carries the structural load so the weave itself only has to breathe and look good. Paper straw, common at lower prices, twists cellulose paper into a convincing stand-in with even less water tolerance. Espadrille soles apply the same family underfoot: jute rope coiled into a sole blank, pressed, and usually bonded to rubber beneath for wear.
Best for
When it works well
Beach and resort wear, because sand falls out of the weave and air moves through it.
Hot climates, where the open structure outbreathes any solid upper.
Light packing, since a raffia flat weighs a fraction of its leather equivalent.
