Walk This Way: Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes
On View May 23, 2025 - September 1, 2025
Everyone on the planet—with few exceptions—wears something to protect the skin of the foot from the crust of the earth. Walk This Way: Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes explores how shoes have transcended their utilitarian purpose to become representations of culture—coveted as objects of desire, designed with artistic consideration, and expressing complicated meanings of femininity, power, and aspiration for women and men alike.
This exhibition uses examples from the designer Stuart Weitzman’s substantial private collection to contemplate aspects of the story of the shoe, from the perspectives of collecting, consumption, presentation, production, and design. It explores larger trends in American economic history, from industrialization to the rise of consumer culture, with a focus on women’s contributions as producers, consumers, designers, and entrepreneurs.
Walk This Way: Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes has been organized by the New York Historical. The exhibition has been generously supported by Joyce B. Cowin.
Image credit: T-Strap evening heels, unidentified maker, c. 1940s, leather, silk, and rhinestones, 5 1/2 x 7 4/8 in. Stuart Weitzman Collection, No. 99.
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