On April 5th the Schoenenkwartier’s celebrity shoe exhibition “Put On Your Red Shoes” ended its extended run in the lovely town of Waalwijk in the Netherlands. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the region was historically a leather and shoe production centre, providing footwear to surrounding countries and North America. You can read more […]
Care In Handling: Out On Loan to The Netherlands
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 […]
Summer 2022 Young Canada Works Project at the Bata Shoe Museum
This summer I am joined by Emma Pakstas and Eric Watters, both graduate students in Toronto Metropolitan University’s Photography Preservation and Collections Management program at the Creative School. Their work with me on the Digital Photography Project here at the Bata Shoe Museum is funded in part by the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations […]
Technology and Design for Speed and Agility
Canada’s champion skater Ralph McCreath in the mid-1940s wearing the newer type of boot and blade. © Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame We are celebrating the official launch of our new virtual exhibition Boots & Blades: The Story of Canadian Figure Skating at bootsandblades.ca. The exhibition is in French and in English and contains information […]
Boots & Blades: Early 20th century brand marks and models
John Wilson’s “The Syers Skate” blade, named after Madge Syers, the first women’s world champion, 1908. Maker of the boots is “The Lobby Shoes” company. Collection of the Bata Shoe Museum. Image © 2022 Bata Shoe Museum. The skate research for Boots & Blades: The Story of Canadian Figure Skating took me down some fascinating […]
Boots & Blades: 19th century brand marks and models
The launch of our next virtual exhibition, Boots & Blades: The Story of Canadian Figure Skating, is coming up in the New Year, so the research into skates continues. In this blog, I’ll take a look at a few of the interesting makes and models of blades that we have been learning about. One of the […]
Boot & Blades: Blade Technology
This is a pair of ‘gliders’. Note the flat metal gliding surface and the thickness of the blade. The blade is also mounted close to the foot and this ‘foot stack’ is made of a thick piece of wood. Collection of the Bata Shoe Museum. Image © 2021 Bata Shoe Museum. As we continue to […]
Successful Young Canada Works Project for Bata Shoe Museum
The Bata Shoe Museum’s long-term project to digitally photograph everything in the collection is moving ahead in 2021. Heading the project since 2007, I am so pleased to have two university students join the museum this summer/fall for a 385-hour Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations program, funded in part by the Government of Canada. […]
New Acquisition: Adidas Superstar by Chris Severn
The pair of retro adidas Superstars in original packaging, as customized for the BSM by their original designer, Chris Severn. Photo © Bata Shoe Museum. The Bata Shoe Museum recently received a donation by the pioneer of the adidas Superstar, Chris Severn! The Superstar was developed by Chris, Horst Dassler and a team of people […]
Artefacts Travelling the World: A Loan to the “Dior: 1947 to 1957” exhibition
The Bata Shoe Museum (BSM) often lends artefacts to other museums for their exhibitions. Recently, one of our borrowers had such a successful exhibition that the exhibition went on tour, and our artefacts went along for the ride. They are currently on view at the McCord Museum in Montreal until September 26, 2021. The BSM […]