Preparing for a New Year of Clog Shopping

After four days in a row of clogs shopping around the world, I thought it would be good to start off the new year with a few additional pointers courtesy of one of my regular readers. I've been plundering eBay for years for unique and distinctive styles. Stefan has frequently pointed me toward some interesting clogs that have been posted in some of the European eBay sites, and at my request, he's put together a quick translation guide. Nothing worse than searching for "clogs" on a site where they're known by a completely different name. That's why I'm passing along his insights.

In German, the "Toeffler" (or "Töffler", with the umlaut) is the Berkemann word for the traditional wooden clog - they have mainly the "Standardtöffler" (which has a perforated leather upper), the "Riementöffler" (with an adjustable instep) and the "Naturtöffler" (plain leather without additional feature). When searching, you can also put a hyphen between the first and second word, e.g. "Standard-Töffler", since people often use different spelling.

You could also search for "Holzclogs" / "Holz-Clogs" (= wooden clogs), "Schweden(-)clogs" (= swedish clogs) or "Plateau(-)clogs" (= platform clogs) on German ebay. Or for "Holz(-)sohle" in the detailed item description - it means simply "wooden sole/bottom" in German.

A short guideline into other languages:
- In French the most common word is "sabot",
- in Italian they say "zoccoli",
and most important in the Scandinavian home countries of traditional wooden clogs:
- in Sweden, they say "träskor" (or "traeskor"), "trätöffel" or "trätofflor" (the "ä" umlaut can be replaced by "ae")
- in Denmark, they say "traesko" (trae = wood, sko = shoe).

The Dutch word "klompen" is only used in the Netherlands, and normally means the completely wooden shoes, carved out of a wooden block.

However, while searching on ebay "clogs" is still the most common word to use - and with it you should still find many listings (albeit with too many non-wooden false hits, I'm afraid....)

But the real question is: how well do these terms work?

Well, on the German eBay site, "toeffler" brought up nearly 2000 active auctions including this buckled Berkemann pair:

 

While the Italian version of eBay turned up this sleek sandal when I searched for "zoccoli":

 

 

Meanwhile in France, the search term "sabot" would give you the opportunity to bid on these:

 

 

Though in Sweden where I expected to overwhelmed with options once I typed in "träskor", I found less that two dozen listings. And most of those came from a single seller:

 

        
 

The Netherlands proved most surprising of all. "Klompen" provided nearly two hundred listings, only a handful of which are actually made of wood. Buyer beware!

 

 

 

Comments

[WendyB]

I'm amazed by all your clog content! You know your stuff. Thanks for being in touch!

[Lindsey Cochran]

And for my part, Ive steered my daughter to your own site. Jewelry making is one of the majors shes considering currently at her art school in Brooklyn. Shes always delighted by new design ideas she encounters.