Bata Shoe Museum: Explore The Roots of Your Footwear!
We continue our virtual excursion which started in our previous article. Today we will visit more halls of the Bata Shoe museum and explore the footwear wonders of different regions of the world. Our next stop is India, a mysterious and amazingly beautiful land with its own footwear tradition.
Old Indian footwear can be read like a book, for it tells us everything about the casta system and about the place of its owner in the Indian society. All the types of footwear are represented in the museum – from rough leather sandals to special footwear for religious ceremonies, that was made from silver.
We move east and explore even more Eastern mysteries with the footwear of Japan. It is of extreme interest for all shoe lovers. Let’s, for example observe there special sandals on slanted platform, that geishas used to wear.
Footwear of Korea also shows us a lot of regional peculiarities and wonders. The most interesting item in this hall are wooden boots with raised toe and thick sole of unusual form. In the XIX century the Koreans used these boots to protect the feet from water in rainy weather.
Stay with us and we will continue our virtual excursion to the world of the most beautiful and unusual footwear.
Bata Shoe: Footwear History Museum
There are many history museums in the world, however, the Bata Shoe museum is unique, because it is fully dedicated to one topic – the history of shoes from the ancient times to modern designers.
Footwear history museum Bata Shoe was opened in Toronto in 1995. Its founder was Sonya Bata, a well-off woman, the wife of a famous businessman, and she has been collecting unique footwear for decades. Today the current exposition of the museum includes more than 10 000 items, that show us the fashion history of different nations.
Let us today lead you on a virtual excursion through the halls of this museum and explore its wonders! We will start with the footwear of Africa.
Quite a big part of the museum is dedicated to African culture. Due to the hot climate no footwear is more popular in Africa, than open sandals. Many of the exhibited items appear to be a part of traditional costumes: they are decorated by ornaments and symbols.
Now let us move to the footwear of China. China is undoubtedly a very interesting country, and this is vividly shown by the museum halls. Shoes and sandals from thin silk, embroided with ornaments, also have the images of different animals on, which are supposed to be the tokens for the shoe wearer.
Stay with us and we will continue our virtual excursion to the world of the most beautiful and unusual footwear.
Le Silla Footwear: Italian Beauty
Le Silla is an example of perfect femininity. Hogh heels suede and leather, strasses and clasps, subdued colours…They are made for women, that want to look elegant and stylish every day, not forgetting about comfort as well.
Le Silla trademark exists since 1994, and its founder, as well as the creator of all the collections, is Enio Silla. The designer sees his main mission in embodying the idea of temting in the form of a shoe amd to highlight the femininity in every customer’s image.
This is achieved first of all with the help of high heels, sometimes combined with a platform (the major part of Le Silla shoes make a woman 11-12 cm higher), classical forms (pumps, open sandals, narrow boots), the use of suede and crocodile leather.
Though, being classical does not prevent the designer from being innovative. For example, it was a Le Silla collection, in which a wooden heel with sawed middle part appeared. The new summer collection by Le Silla features the models with cork or wooden heels and platforms. some of them are of unusual forms - stair-form or the form with cuts amd holes. The upper part is made of suede, and black, bright-blue, pink and violet colours prevail. Evening models are made of suede and have their heels or platforms decotrated with strasses.
Enio Silla has resently presented a line of evening footwear named Le Silla Limited Edition. The models resemble ones from the main collection, but each pair is covered with Swarovsky crystalls. Interesting to know, but a part of the benefit, got from the sales on this unique collection will be transferred to the Amnesty International Fund - a non-governmental organisation, that fights for human rights.
Practical Footwear For Practical Women
Do you want to look fashionable and stylish, and at the same time to feel comfortable? Footwear designers have been working on this problem for quite a long period of time.
As we have already mentioned in the article about Marte den Hollander, today the fashionable footwear empire can offer you an appropriate variant of quick switching between comfort and style – footwear with a transforming heel. The invention appeared to be a breakthrough and is popular among various designers.
For example, a similar idea came to the head of a 23-year old university graduate Ella Kilgour in 2004. She worked out The worked out a model of shoes with transforming heels and named it Declic.
For some women driving a car turns into a real ritual. Some feel uncomfortable driving a car in high heels, so they have to carry an extra pair with them. This problem gave the designers a clue, that there is a need of a compromises variant – both with and without a heel.
A popular brand ?amiLeon Shoes dedicated itself fully to the production of the shoes with transforming heels. The idea of the developers is to make women driving safer and help women feel free at a wheel, without giving up their style and beauty.
Design studio Walking-Chair also works out the models with transforming heels.
No one knows exactly, who was the first to invent the footwear with transforming heels, but one thing is clear – this footwear will definitely be in demand among the auto-drivers and simply practical women.
