The Infinity Sandal: Infinite Cycles
The scene: It's August 2017. I'm getting married and I just started at Softstar a few months prior. I am wearing a Solstice sandal with star print applique flowers that match with my bridesmaids and their skirts.
Our wedding day was a couple of days before the 2017 Solar Eclipse. I incorporated some of the symbolism of the eclipse into our wedding—like the Diamond Ring Effect. This effect is seen just before and after totality, appearing when the moon has nearly covered the sun completely, and a bright burst of light radiates like the diamond on the top of a ring, but only for a short period of time. The Diamond Ring Effect and the eclipse felt like a significant way to represent and celebrate the exciting new phases occurring in my own life at the time.
Fast-forward to the present—it’s February 2026 and the Infinity Sandal is about to launch. I’ve been with Softstar for nearly 9 years now, and Softstar is going through its own exciting changes. Softstar recently became an employee-owned company and acquired SOM Footwear last year! Business is progressing and transforming with these new phases. Even with these changes, our core values stay the same.
The Solstice sandal has remained the same for 12 years now, and is still the same shoe we all know and love. In 2025, the design team began to brainstorm ways we could refresh the Solstice. Our goal was to give it another life, freshen the look, modernize, and streamline the style.
My connection to the Solstice and the history of its lifespan at Softstar both shine a light on where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how we all have an impact on each other. It also demonstrates that the one thing you can count on is change. Ironically, change is constant. The only thing constant and dependable is change. Day-to-day, year-to-year, especially when it comes to developing styles—learning, adapting, re-releasing, making things better. It’s all a cycle.
This unending, dare I say, infinite path of change can be seen throughout the ages. We see how cultures all around the world acknowledge cycles of life—phases of new beginnings, as well as how all things naturally come to an end. One of those cultural symbols that has represented this throughout our world is the Ouroboros.
Without going into a full history lesson, one of the earliest versions of the infinity symbol, the Ouroboros, was found on the tomb of Tutankhamun. This symbol has been known to represent the beginning and ending of time.1
And so, we have the Infinity sandal—born from the cycle of enthusiasm and a place of improvement and progress. As we added this new design, we wanted to ensure that behind those interlocking pieces was the Solstice shape, along with everything else that was learned back in 2014 when the Solstice was first designed. We've kept the same 6mm Pyramid soling, but brought our Oil Tan leather to the new style.
The Infinity was not without its own unique challenges. We wanted to use some of the same cutting dies from the Solstice, rather than get a full set of new dies to carry on the tradition of using our hydraulic clicker press. This was an intricate puzzle to solve: How do you create only a couple “cut away” dies that also work for a whole size range for a style? After trial and error and reviewing patterns with the team, we got there!
How lovely is it that something as simple as a new shoe design can help you reflect on what came before it, what you can learn from current circumstances, and prepare you for the road ahead? Design has the power to remind you of seasons, how they change, and how life is cyclical.
The foundation laid before you often helps you feel brave enough to create your own path. With time, that new path will lead the way for those coming behind you, creating a root system or something akin to branches on a tree.
New shoes, business progress, starting a job, and getting married all remind me how interwoven we all are in one another’s lives. It shows me how all of us together are beginning and ending phases simultaneously, individually but together. That thought promotes a sense of community and unity in this ever-changing world for me. That helps me believe when we are going through harder phases of life, we can rely on the wisdom and community of others to persevere. Sometimes change is hard, but sometimes it’s lighthearted and is kind enough to bring us new sandals.
- (Hornung, Erik. The Ancient Egyption Books of the Afterlife. Cornell University Press, 1999. pp. 38, 77-78) ↩︎