Lasting legacy

A walk through 200 years of shoes

- Steven Morris

For some visitors, the museum may bring back memories of being fitted for their first pair of school shoes.

For others, the cabinets of pristine Wallabees and desert boots may recall teenage obsessions with US hip-hop or Britpop movements.

Memories will also have come flooding back for the many local people whose families made Clarks shoes for generations, when the box-fresh Shoemakers Museum opened in the Somerset village of Street, near Glastonbury, yesterday.

Nicky Dowding, collections manager, said some visitors may be surprised at how far a very British brand, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, spread across the globe. “In the UK, Clarks is often associated with school shoes but within audiences across the world it’s perceived in very different ways,” she said.

Hundreds of shoes are on display, with some cabinets looking like abstract works of art. Dowding said many more were in storage: “One of the biggest jobs we’ve had while developing the museum is actually what do we put on display? Which stories do we want to tell? Because there is just so much.”