espadrille

The espadrille takes its name from esparto, the tough Mediterranean grass (Stipa tenacissima) whose Spanish name comes from the Latin spartum and Greek sparton. Esparto was one of the ancient world's most important fibrous plants: the Romans used it to make ropes, mats, baskets, and paper. The Catalan word espardenya and Occitan espardelha both derive from espart, meaning esparto grass—the shoe was defined by its raw material. By the 13th century, these rope-soled canvas shoes were being made and worn in the Pyrenees, the mountain chain dividing the Iberian Peninsula from France.

For centuries, espadrilles were the footwear of the rural poor across Catalonia, Aragon, the Basque Country, and Occitania. They were cheap, comfortable, breathable in summer heat, and wore out quickly—which was acceptable when the materials cost almost nothing. Basque fishermen wore them; Aragonese farmers wore them; pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago wore them. The French Basque Country developed a particularly strong tradition, and the town of Mauléon in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques became a center of production. French soldiers stationed in the Pyrenees adopted them during the 19th century.

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) gave the espadrille its most striking historical moment. The Republican militias and anarchist brigades fighting Franco wore espadrilles as military footwear—partly from necessity, as the Republic struggled to supply its forces, and partly from a kind of deliberate identification with the working class. George Orwell, who fought in the POUM militia in Catalonia, described the espadrilles his unit was issued, noting how they disintegrated in wet Aragon mud. The image of revolutionary foot soldiers in rope-soled shoes became iconic.

Fashion discovered espadrilles in the mid-20th century. Lauren Bacall wore them in the 1940s; Yves Saint Laurent designed platform espadrilles in the 1970s that sold in thousands. By the 2000s, brands like Castañer—maker of those Saint Laurent platforms—were selling espadrilles at prices the Pyrenean farmers who invented them could never have imagined. The braided jute sole and canvas upper remain unchanged across seven centuries. The price tag has changed completely.