You don’t need me to tell you that Saint-Tropez is glorious in the late spring. Picture: turquoise-winged peacocks gliding over glittering yachts. Immaculate tarte tropéziennes arranged in glass cases opposite the azure port waters. And hoards of good-looking people in good-looking clothes: stone-coloured linens, swirling Pucci dresses and moccasins. Lots of moccasins. Specifically, the sort of floppy brown suede moccasins – or boat shoes – that look as though they were sewn together by hand in the back room of each shop (and often are).
It makes sense that boat shoes would be the enduring shoe du jour of the region. It is, after all, a coastal town, with a focus on who owns boats and who’s been to which boat party. But, looking around during a recent trip, I was struck by the sheer prolificness of the style, as well as the type of people who were wearing them: models, fashion types, the WAGs of the DJ world. This shoe, which has long been a fixture of the area, has now become more than just holiday footwear for rich dads in chinos and their preppy sons.
Obviously the boat shoe has experienced a fashion renaissance more generally in recent years, kick-starting with Miu Miu’s spring/summer 2024 runway and later appearing in plenty of spring/summer 2026 collections, from Louis Vuitton to Marni and Loewe. In Saint-Tropez, though, where suede boat shoes have been a staple since the ’70s, it was interesting to see such a classic style experience new life. I saw very little of the sturdy Timberland-type of boat shoe, either – on the Côte d’Azur, it seems, the softer and floppier the better.
Did I invest in my own coffee-coloured moccasins while in Saint-Tropez? I couldn’t resist. Though away from the sparkling coastal waters, and on the Windrush line back from Gatwick, they didn’t have quite the same effect. Still, long live French Riviera style.
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