The Greek geographer Strabo recounts the story of Rhodopis, a Greek slave girl who, while bathing in Naucratis, Aegypt, had one of her sandals stolen by an eagle. As the tale goes, the eagle flew all the way to the capital of Memphis and, while the king was administering justice in the open air, let the sandal fall right into his lap. Naturally, the ruler was intrigued and had his subjects seek out the woman who had lost her sandal and bring her before him. It goes without saying that upon seeing the beautiful slave girl the Pharaoh fell in love with her and-as is always the case with fictional slave girls-had mutual feelings for him.
The tale of Rhodopis (1st century BCE to 1st century CE), is in fact one of the earliest versions of the story of Cinderella, long before it was retold by Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault, the brothers Grimm and Walt Disney. The story of Cinderella and her greedy step sisters who bled their toes trying to fit them in the glass slipper is firstly a lesson in management: don’t try to take hold of a position unless it really fits you.
Rhodopis, in her turn, teaches us that even the humblest means, such as a single wicker sandal can take you places. For her it was a trip from poverty right into the Pharaoh’s palace- and his heart. But for the millions of people that were using plant fiber shoes for walking throughout history, items such as sandals, slippers, jipsins and flip-flops are a means to travel cheaply without having to worry too much about destroying their footwear.
NATURAL HANDMADE STRAW SLIPPERS
To create a comfortable straw slipper, one has to simply plait or twine a toe cap into a sole. The recorded history of slippers begins in 12th century Vietnam with shoemakers creating twined items out of grass while their colleagues in Thailand preferred to make them out of bulrush. The Chinese also used slippers of woven rush and cotton that had leather lining and featured symbols of power such as dragons. After its introduction to the Western World in the 15th century, the slipper design is nowadays universal: from the simple plaited birch bark shoes made in Scandinavia to the elegant velvet evening slipper known as the “Prince Albert”, with the wearer’s initials or family crest embroidered in gold.
It goes without saying that, in spite of all the diverse materials available in crafting a working slipper (straw, leather, felt, cotton), no artisan ever dreamt of working with glass.