The mountain-dwelling Tiroler Steinschaf is one of the oldest breeds of sheep in the world. Gottstein processes their sturdy, resilient wool without dyeing or bleaching to make these slippers. The resulting felt has a somewhat coarse feel in keeping with the all-natural wool.

Felt made of wool is easy to care for, as wool is self-cleaning when aired. If the felt is occasionally heavily soiled, you can clean your slippers by scrubbing them with soapy water.

If someone says “Patschen” in Austria, they’re most likely talking about their slippers. Ours come from Gottstein, in Imst, Austria. In 1926, the company started producing impeccable fulled felt. Down to the present day, Gottstein has the virgin wool fleece, softened in nothing less than pure mountain spring water, squeezed and beaten in shape on an original “hammer” fulling machine until the fleece is thick enough to be used for house-slippers of this kind of quality. Each slipper is made from a single section of the wool felt; hence, annoying cut edges do not occur in this type of manual production. Put on a last, the slippers get their final shape by dampening, pressing and careful drying. You may notice the slight bulge at the toe, a shape that makes walking particularly comfortable. The pure wool felt makes for balanced temperature conditions all year round.

The slippers run rather small: We recommend choosing a size one size larger than your usual size.