Pla Original Footwear · Sineu, Mallorca, Spain
The plain behind the name
Pla makes shoes hand-sewn from a single braid of jute, by women artisans in Bangladesh, soled in Spain, finished in Mallorca. Irene Peukes, once a footwear designer at Camper, runs it from Sineu, inland Mallorca.
Sineu sits in es Pla, the flat inland plain of Mallorca, away from the coastal resorts, and the label takes its name from it. Irene Peukes runs Pla from here, and almost everything she makes is built from a single piece.
Braid, sole, finish
Each jute shoe begins in Bangladesh, where women artisans sew one braid of jute fibre, by hand, into the upper. It is soled in natural crepe rubber in Spain and finished in Mallorca. The wooden sandals are shared out the same way: a Mallorcan carpenter cuts the pine soles, the cotton straps are hand-woven in Guatemala, and island shoemakers assemble them.
It is a very long road, for it to turn out well afterward, for them to understand you well, for you to express well what you need. It is long, but if you believe in them, you walk it.
Cloth woven in one piece
The dresses and blouses come from Guatemala, where a women's weaving cooperative works the cotton by hand. Each garment is formed whole, straight off the loom in a single piece, and given its own number. Irene travels there herself to choose the fabrics and follow the work. The batches stay small and much is made to order, yet Pla now reaches shops far beyond the island.
Shoe or dress, it still begins as one continuous piece, made by hand.
