Footwear advice
Choosing footwear for the monsoon
The monsoon ruins more footwear than the rest of the year combined, and mostly it is the wrong shoe rather than bad luck. Leather and water are a poor match; the fix is keeping a second pair for wet days rather than trying to waterproof your good ones.
4 min readUpdated By the team at Raja Footwear, Waidhan
Materials that cope
What to avoid: untreated leather, suede of any kind, and anything with a cardboard insole board. Suede in particular is very hard to bring back once it has been properly wet.
- Rubber and EVA — waterproof, light, and they dry in minutes. The obvious choice for wet days.
- Synthetic uppers with sealed seams — they shrug off a soaking and keep their shape.
- Washable textile linings — these matter more than people think, because it is the lining that holds damp and smells.
Grip is the safety issue
Wet tile and polished concrete cause more falls than mud. Look at the sole: you want a pattern with open channels that push water out sideways, and a softer rubber compound that grips rather than skates.
Run a thumb across the tread. If it feels hard and slick dry, it will be worse wet. Worn-smooth soles are the single most common cause of a slip — once the pattern has gone, the shoe is finished regardless of how the upper looks.
Drying a soaked pair properly
Take the insoles out and dry them separately, or they will stay damp for days and start to smell. Stuff the shoe loosely with newspaper, changing it after an hour, and leave it somewhere with moving air.
Do not use a heater, a hairdryer or direct sun. Fast heat shrinks leather, hardens adhesives and pops the sole away from the upper — the exact failure you were trying to avoid.
Keep the good pair for dry days
The practical answer for the season is two pairs: cheap rubber or EVA for the wet walk, and your proper shoes carried or kept at the other end. It costs less than replacing a leather pair every year.