Basque vs Catalan Espadrilles: How the Traditions Differ

Both traditions share the same shoe: canvas on a braided sole, worn on both sides of the Pyrenees. What differs is the history around it. Catalonia holds the oldest written name and a family of laced folk styles; the Basque Country turned the espadrille into an export industry centred on the town of Mauléon. Neither can prove it invented the shoe.

Side by side

Sources for each line are listed at the top of this page: the Catalan encyclopedia and the Catalan News Agency for Catalonia; the Basque encyclopedia Auñamendi, the ethnography site Labayru and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques tourist board for the Basque side.

The Catalan side

The Great Catalan Encyclopedia describes the espardenya as the shoe of the peasantry and of the urban working classes, made by craftsmen in family workshops. Its styles are told apart by how the ribbons are laced, and the most elaborate, the Valls type, threads the ribbon through seven channels on each side. The TOAST history notes that the sardana, the Catalan folk dance, raised the shoe's profile. Details on espardenya.

The Basque side

In Mauléon, Auñamendi says, espadrille making began as extra work for farmers from about 1850, and grew into factories. Orders came from Basque emigrants in Argentina, and in 1868 four-fifths of production went to the River Plate. The workforce was too small, so from 1875 manufacturers hired seasonal workers from Aragon and the Roncal valley. Labayru tells how young women from Salazar, Roncal and Ansó, the "swallows", walked over the mountains each October to sew espadrilles through the winter. The town had about 40 factories in 1946 and five in 1985. Details on the Basque word for espadrille.

Where they meet

The two traditions were never sealed off. French Wikipedia describes a Pyrenean shoe worn from Catalonia through Occitania to the Basque Country. Around 1860, it says, the industry crossed from Spain to Saint-Laurent-de-Cerdans, in French Catalonia, where more than 1,000 people worked in canvas and espadrilles in the early 20th century. TOAST adds that both Basque and Catalan fighters wore espadrilles in the nationalist movements and wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, because they were cheaper than leather boots.

So which should you call it?

In Barcelona, ask for espardenyes; in Bayonne or Mauléon, espadrilles in French or espartinak in Basque; in Madrid or Buenos Aires, alpargatas. The full list is on the home page, and the industrial map of today is on where are espadrilles made.