FROM PEASANT TO POSH
For 700 years, the espadrille did one job: it kept Pyrenean farmers’ feet off the rocks. Jute sole, canvas top, zero pretension. Catalan soldiers wore them. Salvador Dalí wore them. Picasso wore them while being Picasso at people.
Then 1970: Yves Saint Laurent meets a struggling little workshop called Castañer, asks for a heel, and invents the wedge espadrille. Suddenly a shoe made of rope is on the Riviera, attached to women who do not farm.
Cut to today: Chanel sells them for €800. Hermès for more. The jute is still jute. The canvas is still canvas. The markup is doing Pilates.
Somewhere in the Pyrenees,
a 14th-century peasant is laughing.
