If the Shoe Fits
Never has a museum been so much fun.
Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum celebrates footwear in the heart of Canada’s largest city. The foremost shoe museum in North America, and one of only two such museums on the continent (the other is in Mexico), the Bata Shoe Museum houses more than 10,000 shoes spanning 5,000 years of world history.
Take a close look at the collection’s oldest — 4,500-year-old Egyptian sandals of fragile-as-can-be leather — before moving on to historic footwear from six continents, including tiny, 6-inch silk shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet, 19th-century hand-beaded and -quilled leather moccasins worn by the Cheyenne, ivory-inlaid sandals from 18th-century India and silk velvet and silver chopine shoes from 16th-century Italy.
You’ll also find celebrity footwear once worn by Shaquille O’Neal and Elvis, as well as oddities like chestnut-crushing clogs, toe-knob sandals, funerary footwear and shoes designed exclusively for conveying social status.
Beyond displaying lots of pretty shoes, the four-story museum also takes a serious look at footwear, exploring its evolution over time and various methods of manufacturing. Explore what can be learned about ancient cultures — including the status of women — just by observing both shoes and feet.
After your museum visit, explore The Annex, a neighborhood adjacent to both the Bata and the University of Toronto. The Annex is known for its funky boutiques, independent bookstores, cafes and, of course, a few shoe stores.
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