SUMMIT FOOTLIGHTS

–

by Jack Wright

Not all the time but mostly it takes very little to please the Spaniards. It goes with their happy-go-lucky constitution.

One of the first things the United States First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, did yesterday, 27 June, when she landed in Madrid to be with her husband for the NATO Summit, was to shop for alpargatas (espadrilles), the typical summer footwear once worn only by peasants but has been adopted wholeheartedly by the Spanish royal family, with Felipe VI’s mother, Queen Sofia of Spain, blazing the trail.

Alpargatas are no longer exclusive to the peasants but the artisanal way of making them back in the early days survives

And so, Jill Biden endeared herself to the Spaniards seeing that she too went for the unpretentious footwear. They embraced her as their own, and she’s verging on being looked upon as an instant folk hero!

Didn’t the First Lady get off on the right foot!

———

Images
>Featured image: Jill Biden/Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith, PD, cropped. Alpargatas (generic photo)/Tania Cataldo, CC BY2.0 via Flickr, cropped.
>Black alpargata (generic photo)/jencu, CC BY2.0 via Flickr, vignette shading supplied.
>Alpargata-making/Geneva Vanderzeil apairandasparediy.com, CC BY2.0 via Flickr