The Bata Shoe Museum
The Bata Shoe Museum was opened in 1995 to display the extraordinary range of footwear collected by Sonja Bata, a member of the eponymous shoe manufacturing family, a worldwide concern that sells footwear in 60 countries. To be sure her collection was seen to best effect, Sonja had the prestigious contemporary Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama design the building – an angular modern affair complete with unlikely nooks and crannies created to look like a chic shoebox.
The collection is spread over several small floors and features three special exhibitions developing a particular theme, as well as regularly rotated items selected from the museum’s substantial permanent collection. More than a temple to fashion, the museum treats shoes as important ethnological pieces, illustrating not only changes in technology, but also shifting values and attitudes.
Entire ways of life can be gleaned from the design of these beautiful objects, from climate and profession to gender and religion. One fixed feature in the museum is the exhibition entitled “All About Shoes,” which provides the visitor with an overview of the functions and evolution of footwear. It begins with a plaster cast of the earliest known footprint, discovered 4,000,000 years after it was made in Tanzania, and has an interesting section on medieval pointed shoes.
A second permanent feature is the section on celebrity footwear. This displays all kinds of eccentric performance wear, including Marily Monroe’s red stiletto heels, a pair of Elton John’s platforms and Michael Johnson’s gold lame sprinting shoes.
There is also a display of unusual and improbable footwear including unique French chestnut-crushing boots, Venetian platform shoes dating from the 16th century, and a pair of US army boots made for use in the Vietnam War, whose sole is shaped to imitate the footprint of an enemy Vietcong irregular.
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