Nanyang Chang Dao

The Chang Dao slipper is a flat thong sandal cut, in effect, from a slab of natural rubber. The footbed is white and finely ridged; the sole beneath it, visible as a coloured band around the edge, matches the narrow Y-shaped strap that runs from a post between the first two toes to either side of the foot. Blue is the colour most people remember, with green and red close behind. It is heavy for its kind, and that weight is the point.

The slipper was the second product of Nanyang, a Bangkok business that began after the Second World War by importing Nam Iah canvas shoes from Singapore and then bought the operation outright. Canvas shoes came off its Bang Wa line in 1953. According to the maker, the rubber slipper followed in 1956 as model 200, sold for 15 baht a pair in a clear plastic bag. The maker's product page gives 1955, so the date is held loosely.

Its name was never official. Customers called it after the logo, an elephant inside a six-pointed star, and Chang Dao, elephant star, stuck. Nanyang adopted the name only in the mid-2010s, when a campaign called Chang Dao Style set out to win younger wearers to a slipper long associated with labourers and the poor. Since then the slipper has been carved with patterns by local craftsmen, issued in new colours and carried home as a souvenir, while the original stays in the shops at 119 baht.

What has kept it there is the material. The Momentum quotes the founder's grandson, Jakrapol Jantawimol, describing it as like cutting a shoe straight from rubber: durable, grippy and thick enough for rough ground. Brand Buffet, writing in 2018, found a product that had gone sixty years with almost no marketing and no change, and was still being asked for by name.