Opening Day Talk | Elizabeth Semmelhack: Future Now

Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum, is one of the best known shoe historians today. Hear directly from Semmelhack about why shoes matter, what they say about us as wearers, and how designers are revolutionizing what we will put on our feet tomorrow.

About the Curator

Elizabeth Semmelhack is the Director and Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum. Her work focuses on the intersections of fashion, culture, and economics with a particular interest in the history of footwear. She is widely quoted in the media from the New York Times to Vogue and since starting in 2000, she has curated over 30 exhibitions, written 14 books and catalogues and over 30 chapters and articles. Her most recent exhibitions are Exhibit A: Investigating Crime and Footwear co-curated with Dr. Alison Matthews Davids, Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks (2022), All Dolled Up: Fashioning Cultural Expectations (2021), The Great Divide: Footwear and the Age of Enlightenment (2020) and her most recent publications are Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks (Rizzoli: 2022), The World at Your Feet: The Bata Shoe Museum Collection (Rizzoli: 2020), Collab: Sneakers x Culture (Rizzoli: 2019), Dior by Roger Vivier (Rizzoli: 2019), Shoes: The Meaning of Style (Reaktion: 2017).

Host or Publisher Sarasota Art Museum