Marivent, Mallorca, 1986. The Spanish royal family makes its annual summer pose for the press, this time with some special guests: the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children. The moment, like everything that time is responsible for making unrepeatable, is iconic: two dynasties that lived apparently happy moments pose in a casual manner, oblivious to the ups and downs of the future. Of all the details that a curious eye can find in the image – and there are many: the outfits matching William and Harry, the pastel tones, the almost clonal hairspray hairstyles of Sofia and Diana… – there is one that perhaps goes unnoticed, but also defines an era. It’s on the feet: the men in the photograph, including the teenager Felipe, wear the same shoes. Some nautical ones.
That moment, between the mid-eighties and the end of the nineties, marked the maximum popularity of a shoe that, since its conception, has been associated with a certain social class. Its Anglo-Saxon name, boat shoe, It already made things clear, although it was not necessary to own a boat to carry it. Before the recovery of the espadrille, it was the choice of the wealthy classes (and those who aspired to be so) when the heat invited a more informal outfit. It was worn by both commercial pop stars and politicians on vacation, always without socks, and its design spread to any neighborhood shoe store in more affordable versions. But, unlike garments like the polo that managed to make a journey from the elites to the streets, the boat shoe has never been able to completely shake off the aura of a posh garment from it. Even so, from time to time we witness an attempt at vindication, either through associations with urban fashion or with its inclusion in recent collections by Miu Miu or The Row. Theirs is the story of a garment that seems made to be loved or receive the most absolute contempt, with no possibility of a middle ground.
A shoe inspired by a dog
The image of the boat shoe as a garment typical of people who are concerned about inheritance tax is, of course, not unfounded. We owe the design that has survived to this day to a wealthy businessman, Paul A. Sperry. In the 1930s, Sperry, a frequent sailor, noticed that his dog moved without slipping on any surface. The key, he thought, was in the striations on his pads. Thus he devised shoes with a sole that imitated that shape to achieve better support on the deck of a ship. The material chosen, oiled leather, was designed to repel water. Sperry’s own last name gave its name to his brand, which continues to market this model today.
![Prada boat shoes in 2019.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/-5l73IDLHNkRPffgQYUYYElLIWA=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/NPAJW7I6SJMWNDHXFZNFHJOBMY.jpg)
Like other garments associated with elitist sports, such as the polo, the style preppy he adopted the nautical under his wing. That aesthetic that began to take shape on the campuses of Yale or Princeton began to expand as the image of success in its young and carefree version. Sweatshirts, bombers, chinos and, of course, boat shoes, spread as the clothing that was associated with a thriving, optimistic and dynamic class. The image of the American dream.
Since then, the nautical shoe has settled into that ideology of country clubs, marinas and discos in which a shoe is synonymous with excommunication. For these same reasons, for another type of public it has continued to be linked to the concept of the most stale and immobile pijerío. The pendulum of trends, which is guided by units of time unrelated to prejudice, has passed by him again on several occasions, trying to rid him of the smell of men’s cologne and cigar smoke. At the end of the last decade, for example, when the style preppy was claimed both by urban culture (in 2009 Kanye West designed white boat shoes for Louis Vuitton) and by bands of indie like Vampire Weekend. Every so often, therefore, a headline appears: Are boat shoes back in fashion? But are they?
Take your foot off the yacht
“Sorry, are we talking on the stern of a majestic schooner? Is that salt that stings my weather-beaten skin? No? “So why the fuck are you wearing boat shoes?” This is how Tom Wambsgans reproached Greg Hirsch for his outfit in the first season of Succession. The Waystar Royco offices are not the only place where this shoe continues to raise eyebrows, despite brands like Timberland, in collaboration with Supreme, or Sebago updating it. “For me, sailing, like polo, is totally out of my reality right now. “This is a trauma that lasts over time for having worn a uniform at school,” explains creative director and stylist Alfredo Santamaría, known around the world. on-line like Gothic Sport. “Fairly or unfairly, for me it is such a pigeonholed garment that it is very difficult for me to see it in another context, even though there are brands that try to update it.” What it does grant it is its ability to endure and adapt to the times. “It is clear that they work and, just like with moccasins, they will always be present. It is also a shoe that we do not know if it is completely formal or completely sporty and that makes it all-terrain.”
![Troye Sivan parading with Miu Miu boat shoes](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/0-pXWVYsvtWKe2ictilvKtFjyGE=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/RU3WPO5S4NCX7AAUV7BO34V5GI.jpg)
At the other end is the stylist and personality off-roader Josie. “The nautical shoe (white, in my case) is an aesthetic grounding with this planet because with them you step into the world and you always walk around it with very comfortable footwear that at the same time has a lot of personality, with that visual impact. on the feet that evokes open air and the sea wherever you are,” he explains. He overcame the prejudices of the time to carry them. “When I was 20, no one wore them, but I dared because a shirt with initials has never scared me, not even a Teba; so I’m not afraid of any connotation associated with any garment. For me, clothes and accessories are plastic elements in one’s favor, and that is how I have used these shoes, in my favor, throughout these 20 years because nothing closes a better look than a ruined white boat shoe. His cracked skin and his mileage make him a relic full of moments and marks of use that tell of places, encounters of your passage through this life.”
![Vampire Weekend in 2008, their 'preppy indie' moment.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/rcE7z4_-YF2oVjR6WnuAKt1j37s=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/7BTYU2VEYRHNPBWEKMT64HC67Y.jpg)
In the midst of hate and love, designers continue trying to take advantage of the nautical silhouette. Last year, the collaboration between Saint Laurent and Sebago did so by daring to Animal Print. Just a few months ago, Timberland and the New York brand Aimé Leon Doré, specialized in crossing urban fashion and preppy, They have done it with a model that recovers the classic essence. And less ago, Troye Sivan walked for Miu Miu in Paris wearing boat shoes. Recovered or not, hated or loved, the nautical refuses to disappear.
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