By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — Cowboys have been wearing cowboy boots since the 1860s, but the true cowboy period in the United States really only lasted about 20 years. I think Justin Boots started production first in 1879. Later, Enid Justin went out on her own and formed the Nocona Boot Company 1925. Olsen-Stelzer is another old name in boots that grew out of the Justin family. They had catalogs early on and would do mail order to ranches and other places. It’s hard to pinpoint when a good idea gets started. It’s...

Our Bodies, Our Stilettos

By Lisa Hix (Copyright Collectors Weekly 2010) — Behold the power of the stiletto heel. Despite all the advances women have made, it's one fetish we can't seem to escape, a paradox epitomized by "Sex and the City." The characters embodied a late-'90s vision of independent women, enjoying the spoils of feminism: They had the financial power to support themselves, and the personal freedom to sleep around. Yet, they turned into swooning schoolgirls at the sight of a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Collectors Weekly recently interviewed Elizabeth...

Sex, Power, and High Heels: An Interview with Shoe Curator Elizabeth Semmelhack

By Maribeth Keane and Bonnie Monte — I came to the Bata Shoe Museum as a cultural art historian with a strong interest in things that are made for immediate consumption. Unlike a sculpture or painting that's intended to stand the test of time and is one person's unique vision, shoes are made to meet the needs of somebody who's situated within a particular society at a particular moment in time. For that reason, shoes serve as interesting pulse points for identifying cultural shifts, and I have found them fascinating for 10...

Shoe Collector Jonathan Walford on Why Footwear Is So Seductive

By Maribeth Keane and Ben Marks (Copyright Collectors Weekly 2010) — I moved to Toronto in the early 1980s because I wanted to work at the Royal Ontario Museum, which had a costume and textiles department. A job came up at the Bata Shoe Museum, so I ended up working there as the assistant curator and then as curator. Shoes were thrust upon me; they were not something I initially chose. At Bata, I had 11 years of experience working with shoes on a daily basis. What I like about shoes, first of all, is that they’re small, so you can collect quite a few...