I spent the weekend in Toronto, and one of the attractions that I visited was the Bata Shoe Musuem. There were some good exhibits and some less impressive ones. I don't care what shoes Mike Meyers wore in Austin Powers, so the celebrity shoe gallery was of no interest to me. The exhibit on socks was not adequately fact checked, they labeled Coraline as a Tim Burton Movie. It makes me sad when museums present obviously incorrect information.

The exhibits on historical footwear were more interesting, but the best gallery was the one for Native American footwear. They tried to explain the cultural context of the moccasins, relating it to the lifestyle of different tribes and the materials they had available to them.

The small section on shoe making was nice, although not as thorough as Laszlo Vass's book, Handmade Shoes for Men.

Unfortunately, the museum is kept dark to help preserve the shoes, and they don't allow flash photography, so I was unable to take photographs of the shoes.

Tags: shoes