More than 250 pairs of shoes from every corner of the earth are on display at Shoes: Pleasure and Pain, the latest exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Footwear from the past 2,000 years is explored with three overarching themes: transformation, status and seduction, examining the accessory and its evolution in all aspects from its primitive roots to its 3D-printed future.
Scroll down for a peak at the exhibition, but be sure to visit in person before it closes on January 31, 2016.
Red ballet shoes made for Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) in The Red Shoes (1948), silk satin, braid and leather, England, by Freed of London (founded in 1929), 1948, photograph reproduced with the kind permission of Northampton Museums and Art Gallery.Chopines, Punched kid leather over carved pine, Venice, Italy, c 1600s, photo courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London.Wedding toe-knob paduka, silver and gold over wood, India, c 1800s.‘Parakeet’ shoes by Caroline Groves, England, 2014, photo by Dan Lowe.One sandal, gilded and incised leather and papyrus, Egypt, c 30 BCE-300 CE, photo courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
