A REFLECTION ON OUR BIRTHDAY

Today is our fourth birthday. As our tradition goes, we will have a little celebration sale. Here it it...but I also hope you will take a moment to read our thoughts below and give pause to what you are supporting. Use Code FELIZ40 for 30% off our summer 2020 collection and 10% Donation across several organizations supporting mental health for black and people of color, including BEAM Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective, The Loveland Foundation and The Black Healers Fund. And as I said a few weeks ago, I will personally match the 10% Donation on every purchase for the month of June. 

Grass sandals, like many historic hand arts, are in existence because of Indigenous peoples across the world. By their very nature, the espadrille is inherently connected to the land because it is OF the land. I am fascinated by the history that these shoes were initially worn by people that worked the land and the sea, farmers and people that fished. To me it only seems logical that this handmade process be nurtured and continued, as it is the strongest lifeline and sign of respect to these traditions that came before and the place they came from. I often quietly reference this when saying no to larger scale production, for me a necessary choice, but not always an easy one.

I have seen the artisans in Spain be amazed by the materials they work with that we have sourced from other countries and traditions. This is the catalyst I have always strived to create and bear witness to, a collective creation and what can be made out of it, what can be honored. We have been lucky to have received wholesale accounts with prominent shops and our recent feature in Vogue Spain felt more like an acceptance from a Spanish heavyweight more than an accomplishment. But these ‘wins’ have never been as rewarding as the process of honoring and learning that I am privileged and fortune enough to be a part of with the many people that create these shoes with their very hands. 

I have been asked and asked myself many times what business I had starting this project, in a country that I have adopted as a home. As I meditate on this, I see that the best reason is that my ownership and the values that we are founded on and reflect are completely different than the often homogenous ownership of espadrille brands that were born and raised in Spain. (Though, I am told there are a few drops of maternal Spanish blood in me and there is even the history of a Madrileña hatmaker in there somewhere.) Maybe it is for this reason, that the origin of this shoe is so important to me, a thread I consider with every pair we design and make. A thread I see lost on many other brands in their lack of inclusion, lack of context and the shifting of production to the Global South to make more shoes, faster and cheaper.

I began this year not knowing the path Es Par Ta would take, like many businesses large and small. This has been amplified with the global pandemic, a time I purposely paused because accessories sales when so many suffered, didn’t feel in line with our ethos. Now we are traversing through a real cultural, political and life changing revolution to end oppression, for black people, for indigenous people and people of color. 

I see now, we cannot stop. As a daughter of an immigrant, as an immigrant myself here in Spain, as the friend of the many different peoples and viewpoints that have supported and nurtured this business and me. Our very existence is an act of resistance, maybe even a small vessel, to help us cross over to a brighter future. It is not lost of me, that we are a for profit business, we are capitalist in our being too but this is something I am hoping to change moving forward. I have been considering ways to shift the ownership of Es Par Ta to be more community held and community supportive. I don’t know how that looks yet and it may take many more birthdays, but I don’t see how we can be any other thing, to be of and in the future.

Saludos,

Anush