Flip-flop fly: Brazil's best-known beach shoes step out on the feet of jet-setters and peasants alike.

Havaianas, Brazil's ubiquitous rubber sandals, were once the exclusive footwear of housekeepers, peasants, dockworkers and other poor people. Like blue jeans in the United States, at one time the province of miners and laborers, they've blossomed into both everyday wear and high fashion. U.S. actress Sandra Bullock recently wore Havaianas with an evening gown, and now the casual shoes--often generically called flip-flops in English because of the sound they make on your feet when walking--clack regularly down the fashion world's catwalks.

A slab of rubber with a V-shaped strap clenched between the first two toes, Havaianas debuted in 1962, inspired by the footwear of Japanese farm workers. The name, Portuguese for Hawaiians, was selected because, at the time, that's where Americans spent their vacations. "Havaianas today is a Brazilian icon as Swatch is for Switzerland and Coke for the U.S.," says Rut Porto, communication director for Sao Paulo, Alpargatas, the sporting goods and industrial fabric company that manufactures the thong shoes.

In 1994, Sao Paulo Alpargatas decided to market the sandals to Brazil's previously stand-offish bourgeoisie. "We eliminated the middle class's shame of wearing Havaianas," explains Porto. The basic sandal remained the same but now come in red, blue, dark green and fuchsia, some with floral designs on the sole or crystals on the straps. The bottoms were made thicker and more comfortable. Alpargatas reported US$251.6 million in revenues in 2002, 45% of it from the sales of the rubber sandals. Profits rose to $14 million, 46% higher than in 2001.

In 2000 Havaianas, already widely copied around the world, officially went global. "The strategy was simple," says Angela Hirata, Alpargatas' director of foreign trade. "Having the brand name in the low-end market, all we needed was to put it in the high-end market as well. That way, the middle class would jump in" It worked.

Hirata traveled to Paris, Milan and Tokyo, approaching upstate fashion retailers. At the Gallerie Lafayette in Paris, Hirata organized an event where customers were given the chance to assemble their own flip-flops. In Brazil, the basic version of the shoes cost from US$1.50 to $6. In chic Beverly Hills, California, price tags range from $11 to $75.

Wal-mart? Nope, Last year, 50 models paraded in Havaianas at the summer show of French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. Today, jewel-entrusted versions of the Brazilian flip-flops, bearing labels like Gucci and Chanel, are sold in 45 countries. Havaianas exports skyrocketed from zero only three years ago to 20 million pairs last year. Exports right now make up only 5% of production; Hirata plans to push that to 15% by 2004.

The shoemaker is consciously carving out a top-end market. Hirata says she turned down U.S. retailer Wal-Mart's request to add the flip-flops to its shelves. "It would be a lack of respect to our foreign customers," she says. "We don't want Havaianas to become a commodity."

In Brazil, stories about the flip-flops are legend. In one, three children in a poor family in Brazil's northeastern hinterlands share one pair among them; when one went to school, the others had to remain at home. Abroad, devotees include U.S. supermodel Naomi Campbell, who uses every trip to Brazil as an opportunity to buys dozens of pairs for friends. Until recently Brazilian model Giselle Bundehen was also a Havaiana fan. She now works for Grendene, the sandal-maker's largest competitor.

Forty-five-year-old Dani Gamerman, a professor of statistics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, has worn Havaianas since he was a child. Once ridiculed for his fashion taste, he has had his revenge. Gamerman recently lectured at an international statistics congress in Spain wearing black flip-flops, wafer thin from use. "I'm totally faithful to them," he says. "But they must be genuine Havaianas."