Toni Pons

Toni Pons began in 1946 in Osor, a small village in Girona province, Catalonia, when Antoni Pons Parramon opened a workshop making traditional espadrilles from esparto grass and jute, plus leather boots soled with recycled tire rubber — materials chosen out of post-war scarcity rather than design preference, aimed at supplying footwear to the local community. That improvisational, materials-driven start became the foundation of the company's later espadrille specialism.

Antoni Pons i Carós, the founder's son, joined the business in the 1960s and 1970s and pushed it beyond its original local market toward wider Spanish and export distribution. The company has stayed in family hands into a third generation: Jordi Pons took over leadership in 2012.

Toni Pons has kept espadrilles — rope- or jute-soled canvas or leather shoes with roots in rural Pyrenean and Catalan footwear — as its core product, expanding the format into wedges, sandals and other silhouettes while keeping handmade construction methods central to its identity. The company now sells in more than 90 countries through its own stores and wholesale partners, a considerable scale-up from the single Osor workshop it started as, though the brand still frames its story around that original post-war village workshop.