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327 Bloor Street W
Toronto, ON M5S 1W7
Neighbourhood: University of Toronto
(416) 979-7799
Toronto, ON M5S 1W7
Neighbourhood: University of Toronto
(416) 979-7799
- Hours:
Mon-Wed, Fri-Sat 10 am - 5 pm
Thu 10 am - 8 pm
Sun 12 pm - 5 pm
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
14 English reviews for The Bata Shoe Museum
All Reviews
I like quirky things, I like weird things, I like to learn about things that most people don't care about. This is why I enjoyed this museum.
I learned about chopines (essentially crazy-high platform shoes from the 16th century) and that there was a time when both men and women wore high heels. And I saw a GIANT cowboy boot and teeny tiny shoes from Coraline. I marvelled at Shaq's size 23 high top sneaker and Elton John's gayest of the gay footwear. I read A LOT about various kinds of women shoes and how they demonstrate femininity in various time periods and other parts of the world. (Maddening, yes. But also educational and you get to start to see trends).
Some of the exhibits were less interesting and less marvelous but I still dutifully read most of the little signs describing spiritual footwear and chestnut crushing boots.
Don't go with someone who is easily bored, don't go when you yourself are feeling boring. Go when (or if) you thirst for random facts and trivia about footwear.
I don't particularly like shoes (with the exception of colourful and comfortable sneakers) so I am proof that you don't have to love shoes to enjoy this place. Hell, maybe I enjoyed this place more because I don't like shoes (if you just want to see pretty shoes, this is not for you - there is actual history education happening in this museum!).
All of the floors and exhibits were open when I was there, they seem to change occasionally and like any museum there will be times when some are closed. So call ahead or check the website if that sort of thing would bother you.
When to go? I would recommend going on Pay-What-You-Can Thursday nights. For those of you who dislike screaming children on field trips, there weren't any when I was there. And while I'm clearly a fan of this museum, I don't know if I would have felt I really got my moneys worth if I had paid $12. The $5 suggested donation felt just about right.
I seemed to miss the gift shop (or they don't have one) which is sad, because I tend to love browsing museum gift shops.
Toronto seems to be lacking for museums given its size, age, and economic power and I am sad to report that this one's more for die-hards than a general audience. This museum has nice enough architecture and the exhibits are professionally done but it falls short relative to expectations. There's a section on Native American shoes and a section on really high platform shoes from the 16th-17th C Europe but the relevance of shoes on culture is not explored enough given what I would imagine its core audience of women in their 30s and 40s would want. The potential of the subject makes for what could be a much larger museum or a laser focus on one part of the shoe world.
I hope in the future they could go more into the cultural relevance of shoes in modern times, e.g.
* the killing of young people in America for Air Jordans in the late 80s or the mid-90s resurgence of platform shoes in Japan or
* the economics of shoes: why can some shoes at Payless cost $30 while one of similar design but (perhaps) better quality or more human involvement cost $300 elsewhere?
I wasn't impressed with the Bata Shoe Museum. Two of the floors' exhibits were closed, and there were a ton of children running around screaming. The parents didn't do anything about it. You might say that this isn't the museum's fault, but I didn't see a single staff member or docent anywhere beyond the admission desk. Had they been stationed throughout, perhaps this would have encouraged the parents to control their children. With the exception of the "try on these shoes" section, I didn't see how this museum is suitable for children in the first place.
Somehow the idea of a collection of nothing but shoes has potential, but doesn't get off the ground here. Is there meaning in shoes? If so, I didn't see it. Transcendence -- give me transcendence!
(And don't show me anything about bound feet, they're disgusting and beyond cruel. This is an example of the lack of a big picture associated with shoes.)
This is a great museum. I tend to like museums or galleries that are weird, educational, exhibit nontraditional works of art, or exhibit traditional art in a new, nontraditional way. Basically a museum that does its job; it provokes thought.
The Bata is amazing. Yes, it IS a shoe museum, but how often does one get to see an exhibit of shoes. How they can be works of art, explain a culture or time period, or just look prettier than the ones on your feet.
It is a smallish museum on many levels. The concept of walking and using my feet was not lost on me; it made me consider the people that wore some of the odd stilted wooden sandals or Elizabeth brocade beauties.
In fact, I saw an exhibit here a few years ago relating to the "art" of Japanese foot binding. I use the quotation marks because the exhibit showed the pain and time that these young girls were forced to go through to have small, distorted feet. Torture. The shoes were the equivalent of a size three perhaps. tiny. And the sketches of their final foot bone structure made my dogs bark in sympathy. (Er, for those unfamiliar with southern USA colloquialisms, "made my dogs bark" is the equivalent of "tortured my feet in agony." As in, "I danced all night in these cute black-patent stiletto heals, my dogs are barking.")
Shoes Shoes I must have those Shoes!
From the historic boots and shoes natives and European explorers and hunters wore to Elton John, Princess Diana and more contemporary styles one gets a good overview of how footwear has progressed over thousands of years.
The Chinese foot binding exhibit was informative if not disturbing. It was my first time seeing the effects up close and personal.
I loved the modern and airy design of this museum. The book and gift store was great also.
I got the sense from the name of this place that finally culture and I could meet. But when I got to the museum I realized that once you paid your entry fee, there were no shoes to try on, purchase and take home, they were just there to look at. UM...I'm sorry...What? If I want to just leer at a pair of shoes I'm never going to own, I can just go to Holt's and finger a pair of Manolos for free.
But seriously, the museum is semi-interesting offering up footwear from ancient civilization to today. My favorite part of the tour was seeing the shoes of old Hollywood stars - you'll be surprised how tiny those feet are. Let's put it this way, Humphrey Bogart would not appreciate the old saying, you know what they say the size of the feet equals the size of the...
I'm not really a big shoe person, so I never thought I'd walk into a museum for shoes. I thought to myself 'really? Do people have nothing else to do?' Then one day I had a job that took me into the Bata Shoe Museum.
Man oh man was I ever wrong.
You don't need to be into shoes to enjoy this place. From the "shoes" that are thousands of years old, to one of Shakil O'Neil's custom made (meaning HUGE) shoes, this place has 3 floors of wacky fun.
I was supposed to be working, but I kept trying to wander off to look at the shoes, and really couldn't wait for the chance to actually look around and enjoy what the museum had to offer.
There's lots of fascinating information and facts about shoes. Stuff like heels improves your posture (not that relevant for guys, but still interesting).
The Bata Shoe Museum is one of those 'more fun that you realize' kind of experiences.
Shoes aren't the first thing I'd build a museum for. But if I could handle the world's biggest chamber pot collection in Munich, I told myself, I could handle the Bata Shoe Museum. They have a surprisingly interesting, if selective, collection on display (there's more online, actually). I have to admit, though, that they started losing me when the displays went on and on, nitpicking about what qualified as a moccasin under the BSM taxonomy. The curators must be a real hoot at parties.
My favourite item on display was not a shoe, ironically enough. It was a letter written by the Duke of Wellington about how his boots still didn't fit right, and giving instructions on how to fix them--in other words, the commission for the first pair of Wellingtons. But the pair of Dr. Evil Hush Puppies loafers came in a close second (way cooler than Napoleon's socks).
"You can only look at so many moccasins," said my friend as we were perusing this odd museum. And I have to agree. There are an awful lot of moccasins.
Our favourite part were the couple of "famous" shoes: Ginger Spice's union jack boots (see photos) and Mike Meyers Dr. Evil shoes. That was about it. Oh, and for some of the shoes it was pretty cool to see what/why exactly they ARE (e.g. wooden clog roller skates?).
We also went into the On Pointe exhibition, which was all about the history of the ballet shoe. I do NOT recommend this exhibit unless you enjoy and follow ballet. Which I don't.
Basically? This place is interesting enough because of its quirkiness. It's a podophobic's nightmare and a podophile's dream. For the rest of us? It's just a crap load of shoes.
Note: If you want to check it out, it's do-able within an hour and PWYC on Thursday nights after 5.
For what it was, it was a fun side stop on one of my afternoons in Toronto.
My two highlights?
Gerri Halliwell's tall British flag platform shoes
Elvis' shoes
Spent about an hour here. The layout of the museum was a little strange, I wasn't quite sure where to start, if I had seen the whole thing, etc. I think I missed an exhibit, but at that point I was a little shoed-out anyway.
I did enjoy learning about the history of shoes, and I liked looking at shoes from different cultures.
Totally grossed out by the first thing I saw in there.... after you go downstairs, before you enter the doors to the first exhibit, there are a bunch of different types of shoes all laid out on the floor for you to try on if you want. GROSS! OMG, imagine how many sweaty, nasty feet have been in those!
A friend was recently visiting from out of town and after she went to the Bata Shoe Museum I asked her what she thought. "Well," she said, "they sure have a lot of shoes." That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter.
Maybe I'm jaded because I work nearby and the shoe museum has lost a little of its dazzle in my mind, or maybe it's because you can only get so excited about specialty museums. I think that a one-time visit is all one really needs, and even so, I'm not sure that the shoe museum can live up to the hype of the image it projects.
The best time to check out Bata is either during special citywide events like Nuit Blanche, or on Thursday nights when they offer pay-what-you-can admissions. Also keep an eye on the special exhibits upcoming, I know a lot of people are not that impressed with the current special exhibit which seems to have been on offer for quite some time.
For those who masochistically visit Holt Renfrew's impossibly beautiful and expensive shoe collection, this might be torturous but I somehow found it freeing to be stripped of the choice to purchase.
The programming here is interesting, with a permanent exhibit that is ever-evolving and changing. The semi-permanent collection details and chronicles the evolution of footwear through different ages and places. From snow-appropriate wears to traditional Chinese silk shoes used to bind feet, this exhibition is fairly comprehensive. Educational material is provided to elucidate the methods and material employed at various times.
One of the current travelling exhibitions is dedicated to the pointe. Title "On Pointe: The Rise of the Ballet shoe", this exhibition explains how the pointe facilitates such beauty in movement and its important role within dance.
I am woman hear me roar. But not really. I love shoes, and have several pair, but I simply did not have the same attachment with this museum that I have, say, with my stilettos. I read about it on the Internet and it seemed worthwhile. I've been twice and while it is indeed interesting, especially the Victorian and celebrity shoes, there is only so much one can possibly even pretend to want to know about shoes.
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