The Museum's Permanent Collection

storage area for the Bata Shoe Museum's collection

The collection in storage

The Museum's collections have grown over the years and now number over 12,500 artifacts: far too many to be all on display at once! In order to highlight different aspects of the collections, we offer three time-limited changing exhibitions as well as one semi-permanent exhibition.

The EXHIBITIONS section will show you what's on currently on view.

small signature image of online exhibitions Many items from our collections are also viewable in the online exhibitions All About Shoes and On Canadian Ground.


logo - All About Shoes online exhibitions New Online Exhibitions - September 2008
Curious about kamiks? Perplexed by paduka? Want to learn more about footwear without actually getting on your feet to do so? We've recently added four new exhibitions to All About Shoes, our online exhibition website. Learn about the incredibly diverse and ingenious varieties of footwear, and you'll never again think that shoes serve only a practical function. Newly available: exhibitions about wedding shoes, cold-weather footwear and its cultural significance, and more.


The Museum houses artifacts from many geographic areas, time periods and cultural groups, including:

Footwear images are not to scale. Shoes shown in the Collections section may not be on display.


Further information about the Museum's permanent collection is available in the Media Room.