A love letter to the hand-woven Catalan espadrille — and the boho-feminine pieces at Soul Flow Apparel that float above its honey-gold jute sole this spring.
There is a sandal that has been quietly walking through every Mediterranean village for seven hundred springs, and this season she is back at the centre of the boho universe. She is the espadrille — that soft little canvas slipper laced to a spiraled jute footbed, born in the Pyrenees foothills, perfected on the Catalan coast, and beloved by every woman who has ever wanted to feel barefoot without leaving her shoes behind. For Spring 2026, the espadrille has slipped out of her tourist-shop chapter and into something far more romantic. The houses showing on the runways are leaning into the artesanal — hand-stitched seams, vegetable-tanned leather laces that tie at the ankle, and that honey-gold jute sole that smells faintly of warm hay and Costa Brava sun.
We have been waiting for this moment at Soul Flow Apparel, because the espadrille is the missing punctuation on almost everything we love. She finishes a flowy linen dress. She civilises a cut-off short. She turns a swim look into a long, slow lunch on a tiled patio overlooking the cove. And she does it all without ever asking for the spotlight.
A small history, told softly
The original espardenya came out of the Catalan and Aragonese countryside in the fourteenth century, when farmwives wove esparto grass into rope, coiled the rope into a flat sole, and stitched a soft cotton vamp on top to keep their feet cool through the long summer harvest. The shoe was so beloved by the working women of the region that it eventually walked itself onto the feet of fishermen in the Basque Country, dancers in the Mediterranean ports, and, by the nineteen-sixties, every barefoot heiress sunbathing on the rocks of Cadaqués.
What is so magical, this season, is that designers are bringing back the original construction — the slow, two-handed kind, where a grandmother sits on a low stool with the jute coil in her lap and stitches each spiral by feel. You can tell the real ones by the soft little hump in the heel where the coil ends. That hump is a fingerprint. It is a woman’s afternoon, captured in rope.
How to wear her, this Spring 2026
The trick to styling espadrilles this season is to let everything else float. Think soft cottons, slip silks, breathy florals, and the kind of bottom layer that moves with the wind off the water. Our POL Floral V-Neck Tank with Front Pocket is exactly that kind of piece — a hand-feel cotton with a soft V, a tiny chest pocket for a sprig of lavender, and a print that looks like a Provençal table cloth left out in the rain. Tuck her into a pair of soft denim cut-offs, lace your espadrilles up the calf, and you have the entire Cap-de-Creus afternoon in one outfit.
For the beach hours, build your foundation in pieces that disappear under a sarong. The Hollywood High Waist Bikini Bottom cinches at the smallest part of the waist with that quiet, vintage-pin-up confidence — gorgeous under a sheer linen wrap, gorgeous on its own when you finally kick the wrap off and walk down to the water. Pair her with the Bali Reversible Bralette Halter Top, which gives you two prints in one and the kind of soft, grandmother-knotted halter tie that won’t dig into the back of your neck after three hours in the sun.
When the sea breeze turns cool and the candles come out at the chiringuito, slip into our Black Harem Pants. They drape like a kaftan, move like a dance, and do something extraordinary when paired with espadrilles laced at the ankle — they make every step feel like you are walking out of a Mediterranean folktale. Layer a cropped linen blouse on top, throw a crochet cover-up over your shoulders for the walk home, and you have the entire honey-gold hour written into your outfit.
The colour palette, whispered
Hold your espadrille palette in three soft notes: the jute of the sole, the whitewash of a Costa-Brava village wall, and the terracotta of a sunset on the cliffs above Cadaqués. Add one accent — saffron, hibiscus pink, or a soft cobalt — and you have the entire season. Skip the neon, skip the jewel-tone. Spring 2026 wants you sun-bleached, slightly windblown, and quietly glowing.
A closing thought
There is something lovely about a shoe that has not changed in seven centuries — that has been worn by farmwives and queens and the same barefoot girl walking back from the cove with a wet braid, and has stayed exactly herself the whole time. Slip a pair on, lace them at the ankle, and let the rest of your wardrobe drift around them like sea-mist around a fisherman’s lantern.
Come wander our breezy spring arrivals, soft cottons, and Mediterranean-feeling pieces at Soul Flow Apparel — and find the outfit that floats above your jute sole this season.
Soul Flow Apparel
Shop the Story
Hand-picked pieces from Soul Flow Apparel to bring the look home.
