Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum has been adding its unique collections to the city’s cultural mix for three decades. More than just fascinating footwear, the museum examines human history, and tells stories from diverse perspectives from all over the world. BSM is considered one of Canada’s prominent material culture museums.
The Museum will celebrate the occasion with a new exhibition that’s titled “Rough & Ready: A History of the Cowboy Boot”, opening May 7. The cowboy boot was invented back in the 19th century, with a rich tradition of craftsmanship alongside its functional elements. What started with practical dimensions has become symbolic of a lifestyle, and finally, a fashion statement.
Bata Shoe Museum
The genesis of the Museum’s collection comes from the personal collection of a Swiss Canadian businesswoman and philanthropist Sonja Bata, and was started in the 1940s, shortly after she and her husband moved to Toronto from Zurich. The Bata Shoe Company had been established by the family in 1894 in Czechoslovakia. Today, the company is headquartered in Switzerland.
It was her fascination with footwear that resulted in more than 1,500 pairs of shoes that, understandably, cluttered the company storerooms.
Today, the collection consists of more than 13,000 artifacts that cover virtually the entirety of human history. The Bata Shoe Museum Foundation, created with an endowment from Sonja to professionally manage the collection, began public exhibitions in the early 1990s, and the museum itself — designed in the shape of a shoebox — opened in 1995.
Some of the Museum’s highlights through its history include:
- The Museum began acquiring celebrity shoes in the 1980s. A pair of Elton John’s notorious platform boots were acquired in 1988, and remain one of the BSM’s most popular exhibits.
- To celebrate the NBA’s 50th anniversary, the Museum teams up with the Toronto Raptors for an exhibition titled Rock ‘n’ Sole, consisting of memorabilia and shoes on loan from the likes of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Bob Lanier, Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Jordan.
- “Icons of Elegance: Influential Shoe Designers of the 20th Century” attracted special guests Christian Louboutin and Beth Levine, who attended the opening in 2005.
- Manolo Blahnik brought his exhibition The Art of Shoes to the Bata Shoe Museum in 2018, and it went on to become one of the most popular and most visited in the Museum’s entire history.
Today, the BSM’s collection includes nearly 15,000 artifacts, from all over the world, incorporating 4,500 years of history from Indigenous boots to the bejewelled slippers of South Asian royalty.
- Find out more about the Bata Shoe Museum, and the exhibit Rough & Ready: A History of the Cowboy Boot, [HERE].
Are you looking to promote an event? Have a news tip? Need to know the best events happening this weekend? Send us a note.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.
Sign up for the Ludwig Van Toronto e-Blast! — local classical music and opera news straight to your inbox HERE.
- PREVIEW | Native Earth Performing Arts Presents Black Ballerina By Syreeta Hector - April 29, 2025
- PREVIEW | The Amadeus Choir Of Toronto End Their Season With Bernstein & Duruflé - April 29, 2025
- INTERVIEW | Bass-Baritone Andrii Kymach Talks About Eugene Onegin, Alfio From Cavalleria Rusticana - April 28, 2025
