Focused on the women who designed, manufactured, sold, and collected footwear, Walk This Way 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.

The exhibition presents over 100 pairs of shoes from the extensive private collection assembled over three decades by iconic designer, Stuart Weitzman, and businesswoman and philanthropist, Jane Gershon Weitzman. Highlights range from a pair of satin wedding shoes worn in 1838 to a pair of glam-rock platform sandals from 1970s London. In exploring the process of shoemaking, the role of women in one of the first mass production industries, and their participation in the forming of organized labor, the exhibition presents the story of the shoe as it has never been told before.

By 1850, shoemaking was America’s second-largest industry after agriculture, and in the early 1900s, one third of the workers in shoe factories were women. The early 20th century witnessed a revolution in the way women dressed and acted in public along with increased social and political participation. By the second half of the 20th century, women were making significant contributions in the design of footwear, reflecting changing norms of aesthetics while transcending shoes’ utilitarian purpose.

Walk This Way is a traveling exhibition organized by the New-York Historical Society.