For centuries, clogs were the most common shoe for peasants in many parts of Europe and some other parts of the world. Clogs are shoes made of one single piece of wood that protects the foot from humidity outside, making them good for working in the fields or walking through mud or snow.
Here in Catalonia, the most common shoes were usually espadrilles (espardenyes), but wooden clogs (esclops) were also very common in winter. Catalan clogs were made of pine tree wood or poplar wood, which was then smoked to protect the wood. There were artisans who specialized in making them, but ordinary farmer families in the countryside would also make their own. People stopped using clogs around the 1950s, when mass produced rubber rainboots/Wellingtons arrived. Then, clog makers had to close their shops, and most of them moved to work in factories or in building work.
Nowadays, there are very few clog makers in Catalonia. Until a few years ago, the person in Catalonia whose job was making clogs was Jordi Coll, who died in 2009. He had been a clog maker in his youth until clog shops closed, but he started again in his old age. Now, there is another one: the man in the photos included in this post is Josep Pratdesaba, who grew up in a farmhouse in Taradell (Central Catalonia). He explains that all the family used to meet every evening around the fireplace in the kitchen, where each person would do the personal work they had to do, including making clogs. Now, he makes clogs in his free time and goes to fairs and festivals to make them and talk about it to the public, where elderly people explain the anecdotes of when they used to wear them and the young children watch with amazement how he turns a log into a shoe.
Photos by Jordi Borràs Abelló for this article published in La Mira.
