Ferry Crossings and the Clue to the Season
Crossing the English Channel in a car ferry on the way to France it is always striking how one is seeing a microcosm of British society and a season of the year.
Apart from returning French Lorries and some French travellers, it is easy even for a person forgetful of the time of year to tell the season from the English cars aboard. The giveaway for the months of January through to March will be the number of roof racks with skis attached as skiers are off to the French or Italian Alps.
The spring and summer season will see plenty of caravans and mobile homes aboard and plenty of soft or open top cars. Summer holidays will also mean many clues that there are plenty of children on the boat as well.
More subtle giveaways are to be seen on the back seats with heavy overcoats or summer straw hats giving the clue to the time of year and just like spotting a rare visiting bird there is one little clue as to the summer visitor with a pair of sandals or espadrilles perhaps in the passenger foot well.
There is a distinctive brand of this type of summer shoe known as Toms Espadrilles worn by discerning travelers who are well aware of how comfortable this type of footwear is in a hot climate. If there is just one item to sum up summer holidays apart from the swim suit and sun cream then surely it has to be the versatile espadrille.
Originally from an area of Northern Spain these shoes were simple hemp and canvas shoes worn by peasants throughout the centuries and now worn by film stars and nobility alike. It is now impossible to think of people walking the seafronts of places like Cannes without imagining old Hollywood and French films with stars wearing these shoes.
Sometimes the simplest practical inventions become stylish creations that never go out of fashion. Flared trousers and mini-skirts come and go but some things in life never change or change very slowly.
A man’s shirt for example has changed very little for the past hundred years. The dark office suit is cut today just as it was fifty years ago. The whole ensemble of the city gent today of suit, tie, shirt and shoes is the same as it was all that time ago.
If it isn’t broken don’t try and fix it may apply to certain items of fashion such as this. Fashions that come and go on a seasonal basis may only be for those with more money than sense or airhead celebrities but for most of us the wardrobe changes little over the years.
Oh yes, someone did try to change men’s shirts in the nineteen sixties by wearing a peculiar shirt that looked back to front like a Vicar’s. Fortunately, despite the efforts of one minor Royal character this fashion quickly faded away.
Stick with comfortable Toms Espadrilles for the summer foreign holiday along with swimming shorts and not thongs please and you will never be out of date or out of fashion.
Check out Toms Espadrilles at http://www.espadrillesshoes.co.uk/.
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