I have been wearing Be Lenka barefoot shoes for a few years now. I started with their bean-shaped sole (I currently wear Icon, City and Champ with that sole). Then I tried the square(ish) sole of the Entice and Winter boots, and, afterwards, the new version of .
The spring comes with a new sole for Be Lenka and fresh new models, like this Royale sneakers, that they have sent to test and review.
The news sole is less bean-shaped than the original sole (you can see a straighter toe line) but it also has a more sloped shape, not as round as the Entice sole, for example. My feet are mountain shaped so my favourite Be Lenka sole is the one in Entice and Winter (I mean look how well they fit!), but I wear comfortably sloped soles as well.
Size
I wear Champ, Icon and City in size 40 (old models, that were around 25.9cm long at that time), and I feel great in them. But I got both Entice and Winter models in size 41 (26.6cm inner length) as they are lined and I usually wear them with thick socks. I didn’t know how this new sole would fit, so I got 41 (26.4cm say both the size chart and my Plus12). One more reason for which I chose 41 was that I knew they had a thicker line and this 1) would take up some space and 2) meant I wouldn’t wear them in hot summer days. And I made the right decision. I’ve been wearing them for a few days on cold transition weather that started at 1 Celsius degrees and ended up at 11-12 and my feet were happy. I wear them with their insoles.
Upper
The upper is leather with a textile lining that feels very soft around the feet. This makes the sneakers quite warm and thick, perfect to start wearing them since February/ March, as I did. They have a removable recycled PU & cotton that I kept for the first wears. I love the fact that there are no seams around the joints, only neat leather and lining to hug my feet.
I also like that I have room above my toes, so no toe poking through the leather for the high-toed people.
Sole
The new shape is wide (10.5cm in size 41) and nice, though sturdier than the sole I have on Champ or City, for example. But this is ok, as I plan to wear the sneakers in colder transition weather when I want my feet warm. During hot summer days I prefer sandals or very thin cotton/ linen/ hemp sneakers or leather lined ones.
Of course they tick all the barefoot features:
zero drop
wide toe box
flexible sole
There are 4 colours to choose from, I got the white & dark peach model.
They are easy to style, so I plan to wear them at the office a lot. They are also perfect for basking in the sun on cold Spring days.
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