Take a peek into our 14,000+ collection with our new blog series, From the Vault! Every other week, we’re sharing interesting stories about one of our artefacts. What is the provenance of this pair? When did they enter the BSM collection? These 19th century Ottoman bathhouse clogs called nalin were donated to the museum by […]
Ask a Conservator with Ada
Last month, our curatorial team participated in the global event, #AskaCurator. In case you missed it, here’s our conservator, Ada, answering some of your questions. What does your typical day look like? The first thing I do and the last thing is to check the environment (temperature and humidity) in each gallery and storage room. […]
Plastics Blog – Chapter 2 – When Good Plastics Go Bad
Guest Post 2012 By Samantha Conover In my last blog I discussed the surprising prevalence of plastics within the Bata Shoe Museum. Today I would like to talk about why it’s important to identify and care for plastics. Plastics are often misconstrued as indestructible. In fact, plastics can degrade spectacularly, sometimes causing damage to materials […]
Fabricating Mannequins: Displaying Parkas and Coats (Part I)
Clothing and people come in all shapes and sizes. The challenge of displaying outfits for an exhibition is creating a form with the right proportions. Ten mannequins were required for the exhibition Art and Innovation: Traditional Arctic Footwear from the Bata Shoe Museum Collection; each one was dimensionally different but essentially used the same technique. […]
Plastics Blog – Chapter 1 – Plastics in the Museum
Guest Post 2012, By Samantha Conover, plastics specialist At the end of February I began a contractproject at the Bata Shoe Museum. My job is to go through the Western Fashion collection and survey, assess and identify any and all plastic components contained within. Many people are surprised to learn how prevalent plastics are within […]
From the Vault: Amazigh babouche
Take a peek into our 14,000+ collection with our new blog series, From the Vault! Every week, we’re sharing interesting stories about one of our artefacts. What is the provenance of this pair? When did they enter the BSM collection? This pair of Amazigh (Berber) babouche came into the collection in 1994. They were acquired […]
Upon Arrival: Disposition
The bank of filing cabinets holding information on every single object in the Bata Shoe Museum’s collection. So what does that mean, ‘disposition’? If you’ve been following this blog series on collections management, you know the first steps we take to bring a new item into the artefact collection. After unpacking and handling the item with […]
Shoe Business: Stolen Riches
We are checking in with our friends in shoe-related businesses to find out how they got interested in shoes, where the journey running a niche business has taken them, and what the future holds in a post COVID-19 world. Today we are talking to Stolen Riches! Fun fact, did you know that we sell shoelaces […]
From the Vault: 18th century English shoes
Take a peek into our 14,000+ collection with our new blog series, From the Vault! Every week, we’re sharing interesting stories about one of our artefacts. What is the provenance of this pair? When did they enter the BSM collection? This pair of shoes dates to the early 18th century, likely 1725-40. They are possibly […]
Creating “The Great Divide”: Insight into the artefact selection process
Our Senior Curator, Elizabeth, has always said that curating is an exercise in restriction. We might have many artefacts to choose from when putting an exhibition together, but we are constrained by the physical space of the gallery, a desire not to overwhelm visitors with too many shoes, and with the goal to tell a […]