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.
The Biggest Pair Of Shoes Was Created On The Philippines
The biggest pair of shoes was created on the Philippines on October 28, 2002. The length of each boot comprises 5.5 meters, the width is 2.25 meters and the height of each boot is 1.83 meters. A 37.5 meter high giant could have worn this pair of shoes.
The masterpiece of shoe production was carefully thought of and created by a group of 10 masters from the city of MARIKINA – the shoe capital of the Philippines. Today the pair, the price of which is estimated to be of 2 million peso (37411 dollars), is exhibited in the shoe museum of MARIKINA. It took the masters 77 days to create the shoes. The upper part of them was made of 30 square meters of Cordoba leather, and the insole, sole and welt demanded correspondingly 250, 280 and 80 kilos of plant tanned leather. The masters from MARIKINA also needed 225 kilograms of clue and a kilometer of threads! From this huge amount of materials one could have manufactured 250 shoes pairs of average size.
Giant boots have all chances to be included into the Guinness Record Book – for today the pair, that holds the record, is only 3.12 meters long.
Some fascinating shoes facts
–Shoes in Greece were famous for reaching the knees sometimes!
- The shoes of the present day style appeared in England in 1633. Until that time, in the ninth or tenth century, all the mightiest aristocrats in Europe had to wear wooden shoes. Slippers were used even before Shakespeare was born, and from the very beginning were made “rights” and “lefts.”
- Shoes among the Jews were made of leather, linen, rush or wood; soldiers’ shoes were sometimes made of brass or iron. The Jews made their shoes of leather, linen, rush or wood, and the shoes of soldiers were sometimes made of metal – iron or brass!
- According to some sources, “in the reign of William Rufus of England, in the eleventh century, a great beau, “Robert, the Horned,” used shoes with sharp points, stuffed with tow, and twisted like rams’ horns”.
-In Ancient Rome two types of shoes were made. The first one was called calceus. It covered the whole foot and had to be worn with toga when a person left his home. The second one was called solea, it only covered the sole of a foot and could be warn at home or with friends.
- In the times of Richard II shoes were enormously long, that is why they had to be tied to the knees with little chains, which sometimes were golden or silver. In 1463 the parliament of England considered this to be a problem and passed and act, that forbade the spikes of the shoes to be longer than two inches.
Shoes stories: interesting facts about footwear.
Hollywood shoesomania.
According to the data of the Italian Association of Footwear Producers, the majority of Hollywood star are nearly infected by shoesomania. No one of the celebrities spares down on shoes! The wardrobe of some of Beverly-Hills dwellers consists of more than a thousand pairs of shoes. It is worth admitting, that shoesomania is a contagious disease that can also infect male actors. Some of them buy about six new pairs of shoes every year, and this is far before the limit! The majority of stars prefer Italian brands.
Shoes country.
Italian borders form a nice boot on the map of the world, so there is no surprise that this country really specializes in shoes and footwear fashion. More than thirty hundred big, medium and small enterprises manufacture footwear in Italy. Though the country with the biggest number of shoe-buyers is France – the French women still hold this record.
An invisible sandal by Ferragamo.
Soon after World War II an Italian designer Salvatore Ferragamo, noticing the fishermen working in Florence, decided to create sandals, using nylon threads instead of leather. To create the image of an invisible sandal, Ferragamo made a wooden heel, by this making a foot nearly flying in the air. All leather belts were substituted by nylon threads, that were fixed on both sides of the foot.
Due to the lightening the upper part of these sandals appeared to be absolutely invisible, and at a certain angle it seemed, that a sole is just floating in the air. Despite wide publicity and virtuosity of design the sandals were hardly sold, and the reason for this was their exorbitant price. But in the 1960-s invisible shoes got their period of revival. The heels and fringes of these shoes were decorated with glittering gems.
