I took this photo of plakkies on a beach in southern Angola. It sparked my curiosity and made me take a deeper look into the story of our favourite summer footwear.
Considered to be one of the most popular shoes in the world, with more than 3 billion pairs produced every year, our plakkies have been around a lot longer than we have in this lifetime. They’ve been around for about 6000 years!
Also known today as flip-flops, slops, thongs, slides, tsinelas and jandals, thong sandals were depicted in Ancient Egyptian murals from 4000BC. The ancient Greeks and Romans also wore a type of flip-flop, the Greek sandals’ toe strap fitting between the first and second toes and the Roman sandals between the second and third.
The early versions of flip-flops were made from a variety of materials. Ancient Egyptian sandals were made from papyrus and palm leaves, Maasai and Khoisan sandals from leather. In India they were made from wood and in China and Japan they were made from rice straw. Flip-flops were made from twine woven from the leaves of the sisal plant in South America and were made from the yucca plant in Mexico. Modern-day slops are usually made from either plastic, rubber or leather, or a combination of the three.
Flip-flops became popular in the US when soldiers at the end of World War II returned home with Japanese zöri (straw sandals). In the 1950s the sandals were redesigned and produced in a variety of bright colours. By the 1960s they were synonymous with the Californian beach lifestyle, while Havaianas (a type of flip-flop) become popular in Brazil. Today most plakkies are made in Asia, particularly in India and China. Their affordability, comfort and convenience has made them the most popular unisex footwear in Africa, India and China. They are even worn by luminaries like the Dalai Lama, who met up with US presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama wearing them.
Flip-flops made from polyurethane (a synthetic petroleum-based material) have however triggered many environmental concerns because they end up in landfills, rivers or form a large part of the 8 billion tons of plastic that isn’t recycled and pollutes the oceans every year, threatening marine life and exposing humans to dangerous toxins. To counteract this, some companies are now making slops from recycled rubber and from biodegradable material like hemp and algae. As a pair of flip-flops is said to last only two years, it is likely that by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight. Hopefully the sandals with a smaller environmental footprint will take off before then so that we can continue to wear our comfy plakkies with a clear conscience.
Flip-flops have intrigued beach goers and fishermen who noticed that some beaches were littered with right-foot plakkies and others, left-foot, and wondered how this came about. So much so that scientist Gary Carlos came up with a theory to explain it in 2002. By examining the plakkies on Australia’s Queensland coast, Carlos postulated that the sandals were separated by the ocean currents, the left-footed ones pushed to the outside of the South Pacific and the right-footed ones pushed to the centre. This would mean that Australia’s east coast and countries on South America’s west coast, like Peru, would receive mostly left-foot shoes, while the island nations in the centre of the Pacific like French Polynesia would have mostly right-foot shoes, and the countries in between a mix. I was unable to draw any particular conclusions on the beach in southern Angola where I saw right- and left-foot plakkies gathered colourfully together, and will leave that research to others.
As we enjoy our beloved slops, and we all agree that there isn’t much to compete with a pair of plakkies for coolness in the sweltering Namibian heat, we are cognisant of their ancient history and support those who are producing a more environmentally-friendly shoe. The old sandal has definitely stood the test of time and, with a few adaptions needed to sustainably survive in the 21st century, will continue to provide us with cool and comfy footwear as we gather around our braais at the end of long summer days and toast the quintessential African sunset.
(References: ‘New washed-up thongs theory’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 April 2002; ‘A flip-flop revolution?’, Fino Menezes, Brightvibes, 15 January 2018; ‘Flip-flops’, Wikipedia; ‘See how discarded flip-flops from Kenya’s beaches become stunning sculptures’, Erin Grace Scottberg, Reader’s Digest, 12 Aug, 2022); ‘Millions of discarded flip flops posing huge hazard to ocean life’, Olivia Yasukawa & Thomas Page, CNN, 13 April 2017)