Put On Your Red Shoes is an exhibition about music and shoes, at the Schoenenkwartier (literally the Shoe Quarter) in the small Dutch town of Waalwijk, The Netherlands. The town was historically a leather and shoe production centre; in the early 19th century, the tanners and shoemakers were self-employed, and as industrialization grew, the tanning and shoemaking moved into mechanized factories.
For the inaugural exhibition of the new museum building, the Schoenenmuseum (previously The Dutch Leather and Shoe Museum) asked to borrow some of our collection’s music and celebrity related artefacts. We have 10 pair on display, including the ones you see on this page. The exhibition brings you through the topics “Idol”, “Icon”, “Influencer”, and “Silent Disco”, showing music’s influence on fashion footwear from the 1950 to today.
The exhibition will be extended for two more months, until April 2nd, 2023, because it has been so popular with visitors. For the curatorial team here at the Bata Shoe Museum, the process of approving the loan extension is requiring us to review several key issues. After confirming the artefacts are not needed for other exhibitions/projects in the near future, we requested environment readings from the Schoenenmuseum to check that the temperature, relative humidity and light levels were at, or better than, the levels needed for our artefacts. Any changes to these standardized levels, or any large fluctuations, are damaging. The damage can appear only microscopically at first, but over time, some materials or areas of the object can be effected by stresses caused by environmental changes and the stresses can cause future visible, even disfiguring damage. For that reason, museums are very careful to monitor, record, and correct the lighting, temperature and relative humidity of the artefact’s environment.
Suzanne Petersen
Collections Manager
