My daughters used to tease me mercilessly about my infatuation with Julio Iglesias. Not because I moved heaven and earth to get a ticket (and an interview) with the absurdly divine dreamboat when he performed in Lausanne in the 1970s. But because I swooned over the crooner’s bare, tanned feet tucked into espadrilles. 

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It is possible I was the only Swiss housewife who couldn’t resist Iglesias in his bare feet, clothed in cotton and as seductive as his ballads. ‘Señora Corner,’ Mme. Formosa, my Spanish housekeeper told me, ‘You wouldn’t have been happy. Señor Iglesias came on stage in a black suit, black tie and shiny, black shoes. But his singing was still fabuloso.’ Contrary to Mme. Formosa’s belief, I would still have been deliriously happy – espadrilles or no espadrilles. 

My daughters’ teasing only stopped when one daughter chose a pair of rather expensive, green silk wedged espadrilles to wear with a white linen sheath for her wedding in our Montecito garden. Both were the perfect choice for the small, lovely ceremony held among palm trees and flowering........

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