Espadrilles, the rope-soled shoes that telegraph carefree summer vibes, have decidedly un-leisurely roots. Their origin is in Catalonia, in northern Spain, where farmers long prized them for their lightness and breathability in hot fields—and because they were so cheap.

But while the humble shoe has leapt over sartorial and international boundaries to become a global icon, the proud Spanish artisans who stitch canvas to jute are an endangered breed.

“The Catalan word for ‘espadrille’ is espardenye, which comes from esparto grass—the grass originally used to make the sole,” says Jordi Molinos, the master shoemaker at La Manual Alpargatera, Barcelona’s oldest espadrille shop. “English-speakers bastardized espardenye into ‘espadrille.’” (The Spanish word for “espadrille” is alpargata.)

La Manual Alpargatera opened for business at 7 d’Avinyó Street, in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, in 1940. In the years since, it has accrued an eclectic fanbase, with customers who have included Salvador Dali, Pope John Paul II, and the actress Penélope Cruz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired a pair of La Manual’s espadrilles in 1955 for its costume collection. Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafon namechecks the store in his 2016 international bestseller, “The Labyrinth of Spirits.”

Molinos, a no-nonsense Barcelona native, walked into La Manual to apply for a job as an 18-year-old—25 years ago—and never left. He and his co-worker Nargis Kausar, a nine-year veteran of the shop, proudly handstitch every pair of espadrilles La Manual sells.

The showroom today looks pretty much the same as it did eight decades ago. The same long wooden bench curves around the front, for customers to try on shoes beneath floor-to-ceiling shelves of rainbow-colored espadrilles. The same giant oak table dominates the back workshop, covered in ribbons and bolts of fabric.

“Espadrilles were born from necessity,” Molinos says, speaking Spanish with a heavy Catalan accent. “Humans needed to protect their feet from sharp objects and used whatever materials they had on hand—in this case, grass.”

He points to an enlarged photo on the wall of ancient flip-flops, made of esparto grass. Scientists discovered the shoes in an Andalusian cave in 2023, and estimate that they’re more than 6,000 years old—the oldest shoes found in Europe. Yet the soles of the flip-flops were made from braided fibers, just like today’s espadrilles.

“The design worked,” says Molinos. “And it was passed down for thousands of years.”

Over the centuries, the evolution of the espadrille has woven its way through fashion history, zigging and zagging like the shoe’s signature ribbon laces.

The first written record of Spanish peasants wearing this footwear dates to the 1300s. At some point, people began stitching strips of old clothing to the braided soles, creating uppers, then adding ribbons that tied around the ankle, for a more secure and customizable fit. The shoe spread in popularity across Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. Each region tweaked the basic design to give it local flair, incorporating wider or different-colored ribbons, using a thicker sole, or adding a second crisscross at the ankle.

During the Carlist Wars, waged in the 19th century over succession to the Spanish throne, the song “Cálzame las Alpargatas” (“Put On My Espadrilles”) became the battle hymn of Carlos VII’s Catalan supporters. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the Republican Army, based in Catalonia, commandeered an espadrille factory to supply footwear for its fascist-fighting soldiers. Even today, the Catalan police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, uses espadrilles tied with sky-blue ribbons as part of its dress uniform.

But it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the Spanish slip-on gained international fame, spurred by artists and celebrities. Lauren Bacall sported a pair in the 1948 noir film “Key Largo,” while Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn posed for glamorous publicity shots wearing them. Dali, with his antennae mustache and proud Catalan heritage, rarely took off his regional pinxo espadrilles; he even paired their wide black ribbons that tie at the ankle with tuxedos. In the 1970s, French designer Yves Saint Laurent worked with a Catalan espadrille-maker to design a wedged-heel version, then sent models strutting down catwalks in it. In the 1980s, espadrilles reached peak sexy when actor Don Johnson paired them with linen suits on the hit TV show “Miami Vice.”

Today, luxury Italian brand Brunello Cucinelli sells its version—made of “délavé cotton canvas”—for $1,000 (though it doesn’t look that different than the $65 version sold by La Manual).

What has changed most over the years, Molinos says, is the material used to make the soles. Today, most espadrilles are made with jute, a softer and more flexible fiber than esparto.

La Manual imports the jute from Bangladesh—the world’s top grower—where farmers process the plant by soaking it in rivers to separate the fiber from the hard stalk. At the shop’s worktable, the braided jute is coiled around nails on a turntable-like device to create the ball and heel of the sole, then stitched transversally with an awl to bind the layers together. To make the shoes last longer, a layer of vulcanized rubber is fused to the soles via machine press.

Size-specific cardboard forms are then used to trace the shape of the uppers onto cotton, linen, silk, or even leather. Sitting at his worktable under bright domed lights, Molinos shows me how he sews the two parts of the shoe together. First he slips a protective leather sleeve, called a dedal, over his right index finger, then ties a round metal shield called a palmete over his palm. He pushes a thick, 3-inch needle through a piece of olive-green suede, using a blanket stitch to attach it to the jute sole. He works quickly, because the palmete allows him to pierce the tough material with little effort. Across the table from Molinos, Kausar uses the same tools to make traditional pinxo espadrilles (the kind favored by Dali).

As the artisans work, a tour group enters the shop and begins to take photos. La Manual Alpargatera has become a media magnet due to its legacy, and because it’s one of the few shops in Barcelona that still makes the shoes by hand. Barcelona is high on the list of the world’s “over-traveled places,” and mass tourism has transformed the city in recent years, with global food chains and souvenir emporiums squeezing out many mom-and-pop stores. Like other boutiques, La Manual is trying to adjust to the times by offering tourists “experiences,” such as sitting at a workbench and helping design their own shoes while sipping cava or noshing on chocolate con churros.

But the challenge of espadrilles that are mass-produced in Asia is an existential one. Today, Bangladesh isn’t just the world’s largest jute producer; it’s now the largest espadrille producer as well. As might be expected, quality hasn’t exactly followed.

Molinos says the shoes made there are cheaply constructed. The soles are glued on, he explains, which makes them less flexible and more prone to falling apart when they get wet. “They make espadrilles,” Molinos says of these inferior knockoffs, with a dismissive wave. “But they are not espadrille-makers.”

Nonetheless, the owner of another Barcelona espadrille shop recently attributed the rise of fast-fashion espadrilles and the presence of bargain-hunting tourists to his decision to close his family store this past summer, after 75 years of business. There is a heartbreaking irony in globalization killing off a small-time espadrille-maker in Catalonia—the shoes’ own birthplace.

Meanwhile, Molinos and Kausar sit at their workbench, day after day, carefully stitching shoes together at a rate of just three or four an hour.

Before I leave Barcelona, I buy my first pair of espadrilles. For whatever reason, I’d never thought to wear them before. But now, standing in their birthplace, the time seems right. I choose the most basic model: simple flats with a black canvas upper and white stitching.

Over the next few days, I start to see espadrilles everywhere: the heeled variety worn by shoppers along the upscale Paseo de Gràcia district; flats worn by locals performing the traditional Sardana dance in front of Barcelona Cathedral; pinxo espadrilles worn in old portraits at the History Museum of Catalonia.

The grassy foot-feel of the braided jute is surprisingly pleasant against my skin. It reminds me of walking barefoot over dry grass as a kid. And the airy canvas uppers keep my feet cool as I explore the stone oven that is Barcelona in August.

With each step, I think of the centuries of espadrille-wearers who have preceded me—toiling in fields, waging wars, creating surreal art, posing for movie stills on the French Riviera—all of us united by one humble shoe.