Bata Shoe Museum

The Bata Shoe Museum is a museum in downtown Toronto, Canada that collects, researches, preserves, and exhibits footwear from around the World. It offers four exhibitions, three of which are time-limited, as well as lectures, performances and family events.

The collection which became the Bata Shoe Museum originated with Sonja Bata in the 1940s.[citation needed] As she travelled the world on business with her husband, Thomas J. Bata of the Bata Shoe Company, she gradually built up a collection of traditional footwear from the areas she was visiting. In 1979 the Bata family established the Bata Shoe Museum Foundation to operate an international centre for footwear research and house the collection. From 1979 to 1985 the collection was on display at the offices of Bata Limited in the Don Mills area of Toronto. In June 1992, the Bata Shoe Museum was moved to the second floor of the Colonnade, an office and retail complex in downtown Toronto, where it remained until November 1994. On 6 May 1995 the expanded museum opened its doors to the public in its own building.