I have a confession. After a decade-long love affair, I have officially retired my Birkenstocks and replaced them with comfy flip flops: the simplest, flimsiest and once most deeply uncool shoe imaginable. “Comfy” being the operative word here: not all flip flops are made equal – and I'm only interested in pairs that I can walk 10k steps in.

Don’t get me wrong, I remain emotionally indebted to those cork-bottomed sliders. They carried me through 20,000-step days while backpacking around South East Asia at circa 2018, survived countless British festivals and long summers inter-railing in Europe. But somewhere between my frontal lobe fully developing and a trip to Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2025, I realised I'd been influenced. The flip flop was no longer simply the shoe you shoved into your suitcase for the hotel pool. It had become the ultimate cool-girl sandal.

In Copenhagen, I watched the style set pair classic rubber flip-flops with the kind of outfits I would once have deemed far too polished for them: oversized tailoring, sheer skirts, longline dresses and crisp cotton separates. The contrast was the entire point. The humble flip-flop made even the most put-together outfit feel relaxed, modern and infinitely more chic.

READ MORE: 6 summer sandal trends the cool girls of London are wearing in 2026.

Naturally, flip flops are now being worn with everything from balloon trousers and vintage denim to silk slip skirts and floaty dresses. There are barely-there leather versions, jelly styles, kitten-heeled flip-flops and beautifully minimal designs that look entirely appropriate for an evening soirèe. Still, I’d argue that the straightforward rubber thong remains the coolest of them all.

The key to making flip-flops feel styled rather than as though you’ve wandered away from the communal showers is all in what you wear them with. Let them provide an irreverent finish to something more elevated: a tailored trouser, an oversized shirt, a column dress or a full-length skirt. Add a good pedicure and a great bag, and suddenly the shoe once reserved for beach holidays becomes the most effortless way to make your summer wardrobe feel current.

It helps that flip flops are, mostly, genuinely comfortable. If you purchase the right pair (what this guide is for): no complicated straps, no breaking-in period and no pretending that a pair of rigid leather sandals isn’t slowly removing the skin from your heel. Simply slip them on and go. Here, I've weighed in on the pairs I've worn and actually found comfortable for wearing for more steps than are needed to get you down to the pool.