How to Wear It: Espadrilles

They pass in and out of fashionability every few years--otherwise these canvas and ropework slip-ons are the footgear du choix of southern Mediterranean residents who wear them casually: at the cafe sipping Pernod, playing boules, tending their rose garden, or knocking out a watercolor of the yacht-ridden view from the terrace.

The question: it is possible to look chic in espadrilles?

Here's a little lady who manages, unsurprisingly, to pull it off . . . Ranier, down in ultra-Med Monaco, must have taken one look and thought, she will do nicely.