In the previous article, you were introduced to the French Shoe Museum.
Now let’s travel to Canada together and get to know the Bata Shoe Museum or BSM:

Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto,Canada

Discover the treasures of the inspiring, fascinating and amazing shoe museum of North America.
The Bata Shoe Museum (BSM), located in Toronto, Canada, is housed in the iconic and award-winning Raymond Moryama Architect.
The museum displays more than a thousand related shoes and works of art, selected from a collection of more than 13,000 objects.
BSM celebrates shoe style, development and performance in four impressive galleries.
These include Chinese leather shoes, ancient Egyptian sandals to chestnut shells and glamorous platforms.
More than 4,500 years of history are on display in the museum’s permanent exhibition.
The other three galleries of the museum have changing exhibitions.
So there is always something new to see.

How did a personal interest become an internationally recognized collection?

Participating in the global shoe industry allowed the founder to build one of the best collections in the world and to create the first shoe museum in North America.
There is a lot of valuable information inside the dazzling museum building.

Shoes are a sign of personal taste and style.
However, shoes can also tell us a lot about the technological advancement of the world and can be a change in the attitude and values ​​of society.
Shoes show the way of life:
It reflects the climate, religious beliefs and business development and how attitudes towards gender and social status change in old age.

Establishment of the Bata Foundation and its goals

In 1979, when Ms. Bata’s private collection died, the Bata family founded the Bata Shoe Museum Foundation.
Over the years, the foundation has funded the collection and research of footwear in communities where traditions are changing rapidly.
In particular, Native American cultures and tour groups in Canada, Siberia, Alaska and Greenland.
These field studies have led to the publication of many academic journals for the Foundation:
From the typology of indigenous shoes to the Siberian spirit: traditional indigenous life, clothing and footwear.
However, the foundation’s main goal was to establish an International Shoe Research Center.
The result was the Bata Shoe Museum, with its unique collection of more than 13,000 related shoes and objects.

On May 6, 1995, the Bata Shoe Museum opened its doors.
The museum is located at 327 Bloor Street West in downtown Toronto, in a iconic building designed by architect Raymond Moryama.
This place, as a unique specialized museum in the world, has become an important destination for visitors.

World famous BSM collection with over 13,000 works of art

The mission of the Bata Shoe Museum is to show the main role of shoes in shaping the social and cultural life of humanity.
This museum reflects the changing habits, lifestyle, culture and customs of the inhabitants of the world by gaining information, protection, research, interpretation and displaying material evidence from the history of shoes.
The BSM International Collection, with more than 13,000 works of art, covers 4,500 years of history.

The Bata Shoe Museum is home to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of footwear and footwear.
In addition, it is an internationally recognized center for shoe research that supports field research, publishes research findings, and promotes training.

Currently, the permanent collection includes antiquities from almost every culture in the world.
Where else can you find French chestnut crushing boots under one roof with delicate embroidered silk shoes, bear fur shoes made for Japanese samurai warriors and shoes made of human hair?

A rare velvet covered platform well-preserved from 16th-century Italy is one of the great treasures of the museum’s shoe collection.
From the Italian Renaissance to the way of modern designers, each one is in order.
This chain – so long that the wearer can not walk without a step.

A collection of native shoes

One of the most important aspects of BSM resources is the wide range of Native American shoes and various wheels.
This collection, along with field work that has been used to study indigenous shoes and has played a significant role in the scholarship for shoes.

From the most popular collections, a wide range of shoes of celebrities:
These include Queen Victoria Bridal Slippers, Robert Redford Cowboy Boots, Elton John Solid Silver Platform Boots, Terry Fox Running Shoes, Elvis Presley Blue and Patent Summer Shoes, Karen Cain and John Lennon Ballet Shoes .

The museum’s archeological collection includes shoes from the earliest civilizations on earth:
Ancient Egypt sarcophagus with painted sandals and foot-shaped rims, ancient Greece and Roman bronze lamps representing the feet of the sandals.
The collection also includes attractive examples of medieval shoes.

But the BSM collection does not stop. The Bata Shoe Museum also has a collection of decorative shoe artefacts such as handmade majolica tubes and patterned wooden fruit boxes, as well as graphic materials ranging from fourteenth-century woodcuts and nineteenth-century cartoon lithographs to original paintings and sculptures has in his treasure.