SHOES | ART | ARCHITECTURE

WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT WALKING INTO A SHOE MUSEUM?

A museum for shoes that is. As oddly exciting as it sounds, an actual museum where instead of art you get shoes, yet they are artful enough to make you wanna play with the loose boundaries of the word ‘art’ and expand it just a bit to fit a pair of heels into its definition..

I was invited to a cocktail party at the Shoe Museum of Thessaloniki. As true lover of sheer novelty and wonderful bizarreness I knew I was gonna have a blast. “Put on your Best Shoes and come” the invitation wrote and so I did. With a cocktail in one hand and my camera in the other, I wandered around in a pair of nude, minimalistic Givenchy sandals.

This was a celebration of shoes, art, craftmanship, cultural history and architecture all in one place. Shoes made for walking or purely for display, shoes for ballerinas, athletes, cowgirls and fashion kings, Cinderellas or the lady Gagas of every day life, turns out there’s the perfect shoe for the perfect version of you.

We got a taste of shoe-celebrity life as well, Kobi Levi, (Lady Gaga shoe designer), Rene Van Den Berg (exclusive shoe designer – Beyoncé,Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Fergie )and Liza Snook (famous shoe collector and shoe museumcurator). If you have a passion for footwear and no one gets you, this was the place to be. 

If you have second thoughts about the point and value of a shoe museum, there’s more to it than gorgeous heels. A whole mission and vision as a matter of fact: to provide education and training services, advisory support to stakeholders, start-ups, innovations, research into state-of-the-art equipment for the use of new materials and products. To serve as a tool for industrial development, as well as a specialized technology resource center, giving value to micro and small footwear goods, capturing market needs through market research, and monitoring the development of the footwear industry worldwide.

Moreover they are giving back and they are taking their social responsibilities very seriously In collaboration with ASTERI Association in the International initiative “Steady Steps for the Future” the Museum will support Special Scholarships for new talents, designers, and at the same time will collect footwear to support children of vulnerable social groups.

WE’LL KEEP AN EYE ON YOU SHOE MUSEUM, MAY YOU ALWAYS KEEP YOUR HEELS AND STANDARDS HIGH..

xoxo, Chelf