Baring Your Sole

Concept development · Exhibition design · Experience design · Graphic design · Visualization

Baring your sole is an exhibition at the Museum at FIT that draws a parallelism between the social, cultural, and material transformation of shoes throughout history and the transformations throughout the life of an individual. The exhibition focuses on landmarks in history as well as the milestones in people’s lives.

Shoes are representative of social status, but they also have a great impact on our perception of others, as well as ourselves. While their origins were merely functional, we have granted them with meaning and symbolism across the globe. The role shoes play is significant throughout each step of our journey into adulthood or our search for identity, but also sexuality, gender, politics, conformity, and personality as parts of our extended selves. 

The visitors explore this first step of their journey through the history and meaning of shoes for humanity. With each step taken throughout the exhibition, the visitors explore the evolution and milestones of shoes. As a result, they will be able to reflect on those shoes that mark their own personal stories and will never look at shoes the same way again.