It’s pretty clear what house slippers are designed for: plodding around the living room, road trips, cozying up by the woodstove on a hut trip. But those are just the intended uses. In our WFH era, we’ve collectively pushed the boundaries of how much loungewear we can get away with in everyday life. Sweatpants in public? Normal. Three-day-old hoodies on Zoom? Sure. Me? I’ve taken to treating my house slippers less like footwear and more like a life partner.
I got my first pair of Glerups slippers in 2019, and I haven’t gone more than a day or two without them since. It’s no exaggeration to say these cozy wool slippers are among my most prized possessions. The Danish-made felt boots with rubber soles have proven to be the ideal inside-outside shoe, with ankle-high coverage that adds just enough protection to tromp around through a light dusting of snow or stroll along a woodsy trail.
The upper is 100 percent wool, which is optimal for heat regulation. In hundreds of hours with these felt slippers on my feet (sometimes sans socks—sorry, not sorry), they’ve never picked up even a hint of smell. Even in the warmer months, I still cruise around the house in them like the cohabiting duo we are.
The rubber soles wrap slightly up the boot—a seemingly minor detail that has become essential for muddy neighborhood strolls and keeping the felt dry. And even if the wool does take a dip in the muck, it’s easy to brush off once dry. No matter how I mistreat them, they just shrug off the abuse.
There are no footbeds or arch support, but that hasn’t stopped me from jogging through airports, putting dozens of city miles on them, or wandering the lower reaches of Jackon’s Snow King Mountain (the rubber is surprisingly grippy). I walk to the gym in my Glerups, do all my grocery shopping in them, and have spent hours in snowy parking lots for tailgate après—the wool makes them the perfect post-ski slipper for smelly, sweaty feet. One time, en route to the airport for a two-week trip to Europe, I actually turned the car around because I’d forgotten them. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, but I wasn’t interested in testing that theory.
One bonus of the boot height (they also come in shoe and slip-on styles) is that they don’t quite look like house slippers. If you look really closely, sure. But it’s easy to slide them on for dinner dates and fly under the radar while your feet luxuriate in sneaky comfort.
In nearly a decade of testing outdoor gear, these are probably the number one item I get asked about—are they comfortable, do they hold up, are they worth the price? Yes. One hundred times yes. We’re six years in, and my Glerups and I are only at the beginning of our story.
Glerups slippers come in eight different wool colors, various heights (boots, shoes or slip-ons) and leather or rubber soles. If you, like me, plan to push them to their absolute limit, I recommend nothing but the rubber-soled boots. For regular life and household chilling, the slip-ons and shoes will do the trick, too—but fair warning: once you let them into your life, you may never want to be without them either.
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