A longtime Texas baseball glove maker is partnering with a Dallas-based flip-flop company to create a new kind of sandal released Tuesday.
Nokona has been making leather baseball gloves by hand in a factory in Nocona, Texas, for more than 80 years. Hari Mari, a flip-flop company based in Dallas, approached the glove maker last summer in the hopes of partnering to create a high-end, leather flip flop, according to The Dallas Morning News.
The Dallas company, started five years ago, by Jeremy and Lila Stewart, is known for its unique footwear and commitment to social good.
Hari Mari donates one percent of its proceeds from each sale through its Flops Fighting Cancer initiative, which helps cover medical costs for children battling cancer at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth. It also recycles old flip flops from any brand through its Zero Landfill Initiative.
The new Hari Mari x Nokona flip flops are made with the same American steer hide that is used for the legendary baseball gloves, and come in three different leather colors, according to a company release.
They will be sold online and at select retailers for $110. They will also be available at Nokona’s store in Texas, where many baseball fans travel to tour the glove factory, according to the Morning News.
“It’s not every day you get the opportunity to partner with an eighty-two-year-old heritage baseball brand,” said Hari Mari founder Jeremy Stewart in a release. “We’re ecstatic, to say the least, to fuse Nokona’s American top-grain leather with our great flip flop, making what we feel is the softest leather flip flop ever.”
Delivering what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth innovation, every day. Get the Dallas Innovates e-newsletter.