Bata Shoes From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Bata

Type Industry Founded Founder(s)

Private company Retail and Manufacturing Zln, Czech Republic (1894) Tom Baa

Headquarters Lausanne, Switzerland Area served Products Worldwide Footwear, Clothing and Fashion accessory Owner(s) Website Bata (also Bata Family www.bata.com known as Bata Shoe Organization) is a family-owned

global footwear and fashion accessory manufacturer and retailer with acting headquarters located in Lausanne, Switzerland. Organised into three business units: Bata Europe, based in Italy; Bata Emerging Market (Asia, Pacific, Africa and Latin

America), based in Singapore, and Bata Protective (worldwide B2B operations), based in the Netherlands, the organization has a retail presence in over 70 countries and production facilities in 26 countries. In its history the Bata has sold more than 14 billion pairs of shoes and was awarded the Guinness World Record as the "Largest Shoe Retailer and Manufacturer". Contents [hide]

1 Origins and history

o o o o o o o o o o

1.1 Foundation 1.2 World War I 1.3 Shoemaker to the world 1.4 International growth 1.5 Jan Antonn Baa 1.6 Bata-villes 1.7 World War II 1.8 After war 1.9 Czechoslovakia after 1989 1.10 Present

2 Bata brands 3 In popular culture 4 See also 5 References 6 External links [edit]Origins and history

[edit]Foundation The company was founded under the name A. Baa in 1894 in Zln (then AustroHungarian Empire, today the Czech Republic) by Tom Baa (Czech

pronunciation: [toma baca]), his brother Antonn and his sister Anna, whose family had been cobblers for generations. The company employed 10 full-time employees with a fixed work schedule and a regular weekly wage, a rare find in its time. In the summer of 1895, Tom found himself facing financial difficulties, and debts abounded. To overcome these serious setbacks, Tom decided to sew shoes from canvas instead of leather. This type of shoe became very popular and helped the company grow to 50 employees. Four years later, Bata installed its first steamdriven machines, beginning a period of rapid modernization. In 1904 Tom Baa introduced mechanized production techniques that allowed the Bata Shoe Company to become one of the first mass producers of shoes in Europe. Its first mass product, the Batovky, was a leather and textile shoe for working people that was notable for its simplicity, style, light weight and affordable price. Its success helped fuel the companys growth and, by 1912, Bata was employing 600 full-time workers, plus another several hundred who worked out of their homes in neighboring villages. [edit]World War I In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, the company had a significant development due to military orders. From 1914 to 1918 the number of Baas employees increased ten times. The company opened its own stores in Zln, Prague, Liberec, Vienna and Pilsen, among other towns.

In the global economic slump that followed World War I, the newly created country of Czechoslovakia was particularly hard hit. With its currency devalued by 75%, demand for products dropped, production was cut back, and unemployment was at an all-time high. Tomas Bata responded to the crisis by cutting the price of Bata shoes in half. The companys workers agreed to a temporary 40 percent reduction in wages; in turn, Bata provided food, clothing, and other necessities at half-price. He also introduced one of the firstprofit sharing initiative transforming all employees into associates with a shared interest in the company's success (today's equivalent of performance based incentives and stock options). [edit]Shoemaker to the world Consumer response to the price drop was dramatic. While most competitors were forced to close due to the crisis in demand between 1923 and 1925, Bata was expanding as demand for the inexpensive shoes grew rapidly. The Bata Shoe Company increased production and hired more workers. Zlin became a veritable factory town, a "Bataville" covering several acres. On the site were grouped tanneries, a brickyard, a chemical factory, a mechanical equipment plant and repair shop, workshops for the production of rubber, a paper pulp and cardboard factory (for production of packaging), a fabric factory (for lining for shoes and socks), a shoe-shine factory, a power plant and a farming actvities to cover both food and energy needs... Horizontal and vertical integration. Workers, "Batamen", and their families had at their disposal all the necessary everyday life services: housing, shops, schools, hospital, etc. [edit]International growth

Lockheed 10 Electra executive aircraft operated prewar by Bata in Europe Bata also began to build towns and factories outside of Czechoslovakia (Poland, Latvia, Romania, Switzerland, France) and to diversify into such industries as tanning (1915), the energy industry (1917), agriculture (1917), forest farming (1918), newspaper publishing (1918), brick manufacturing (1918), wood processing (1919), the rubber industry (1923), the construction industry (1924), railway and air transport (1924), book publishing (1926), the film industry (1927), food processing (1927), chemical production (1928), tyre manufacturing (1930), insurance (1930), textile production (1931), motor transport (1930), sea transport (1932), and coal mining (1932). Airplane manufacturing (1934), synthetic fibre production (1935), and river transport (1938). In 1923 the company boasted 112 branches. In 1924 Tom Baa displayed his business acumen by figuring out how much turnover he needed to make with his annual plan, weekly plans and daily plans. Baa utilized four types of wages fixed rate, individual order based rate, collective task rate and profit contribution rate. He also set what became known as Baa prices numbers ending with a nine rather than with a whole number. His

business skyrocketed. Soon Baa found himself the fourth richest person in Czechoslovakia. From 1926 to 1928 the business blossomed as productivity rose 75 percent and the number of employees increased by 35 percent. In 1927 production lines were installed, and the company had its own hospital. By the end of 1928, the companys head factory was composed of 30 buildings. Then the entrepreneur created educational organizations such as the Baa School of Work and introduced the five-day work week. In 1930 he established a stunning shoe museum that maps shoe production from the earliest times to the contemporary age throughout the world. By 1931 there were factories in Germany, England, the Netherlands, Poland and in other countries. In 1932, at the age of 56, Tom Baa died in a plane crash during take off under bad weather conditions at Zln Airport. Control of the company was passed to his half-brother, Jan, and his son, Thomas John Bata, who would go on to lead the company for much of the twentieth century guided by their fathers moral testament: the Bata Shoe company was to be treated not as a source of private wealth, but as a public trust, a means of improving living standards within the community and providing customers with good value for their money. Promise was made to pursue the entrepreneurial, social and humanitarian ideals of their father. [edit]Jan Antonn Baa At the time of Tom's death, the Baa company employed 16,560 people, maintained 1,645 shops and 25 enterprises. Jan Baa, following the plans laid down by Tomas Bata before his death, expanded the company more than six times its original size throughout Czechoslovakia and the world. Plants in Britain, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Brazil,Kenya, Canada and followed in the decade. In India, Batanagar was the United settled States,

near Calcutta and

accounted from the late 1930s nearly 7500 Batamen. The Bata model fitted anywhere, creating, for example, canteens for vegetarians in India and respecting the caste system. In exchange, the demands on workers were as strong as in Europe: "Be courageous. The best in the world is not good enough for us. Loyalty gives us prosperity & happiness. Work is a moral necessity!" As of 1934, the firm owned 300 stores in North America, a thousand in Asia, more than 4,000 in Europe. In 1938, the Group employed just over 65,000 people worldwide, including 36% outside Czechoslovakia and had stakes in the tanning, agriculture, newspaper publishing, railway and air transport, textile production, coal mining and aviation realms. [edit]Bata-villes Company policy initiated under Tomas Baa was to set up villages around the factories for the workers and to supply schools and welfare. These villages include Batadorp in theNetherlands, Baovany (present-day Partiznske) and Svit in Slovakia, Baov (now Bahk, part of Otrokovice) in the Czech Republic, Borovo-Bata (now Borovo Naselje, part ofVukovar in Croatia then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Bataville in Lorraine, France, Batawa in Canada, East Tilbury[1] in Essex, England, Batapur in Pakistan and Batanagar andBataganj in India. There was also a factory in Belcamp, Maryland, USA, northeast of Baltimore on U.S. Route 40 in Harford County.[2] The British "Bata-ville" in East Tilbury inspired the documentary film Bata-ville: We Are Not Afraid of the Future.[3] [edit]World War II Just before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Bata helped re-post his Jewish employees to branches of his firm all over the world. [4][5] Germany

occupied the remaining part of pre-war Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939; Jan Antonn Baa then spent a short time in jail but was then able to leave the country with his family. Jan Antonn Baa stayed in the Americas from 19391940, but when America entered the war, he felt it would be safer for his co-workers and their families back in occupied Czechoslovakia if he left the United States. He tried to save as much as possible of the business, submitting to the plans of Germany as well as financially supporting the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile led byEdvard Bene. At occupied Europe a Bata shoe factory was connected to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.[6] The first slave labour efforts in Auschwitz involved the Bata shoe factory.[7] In 1942 a small camp was established to support the Bata shoe factory at Chemek with Jewish slave labourers.[8]

After war

Bata International Centre 1965-2004

Tomas' son Thomas manager of the buying department of the English Bata Company was unable to return until after the war. He was sent to Canada by his Uncle Jan where he was the Vice President of the Bata Import and Export Company of Canada, which developed into another model community named Batawa that had been founded by Jan Antonin Bata in 1938. Foreign subsidiaries were separated from the mother company, and ownership of plants in Bohemia and Moravia was transferred to another member of the family. After war governments in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Yugoslavia confiscated and nationalized Bata factories in 1945, stripping Bata of its Eastern European assets. From its new base in Canada, the company gradually rebuilt itself, expanding into new markets throughout Asia, the Middle

East, Africa and Latin America. Rather than organizing these new operations in a highly centralized structure, Bata established a confederation of autonomous units that could be more responsive to new markets in developing countries. In 1964, the Bata Shoe Organisation moved their headquarters to Toronto, Canadaand in 1965 moved again, into an ultra-modern building, the Bata International Centre. The Bata Shoes' former headquarters in North York, Ontario was designed in the 1960s by architect John B. Parkin.

Czechoslovakia after 1989 After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, Thomas J. Baa arrived as soon as December 1989. The Czechoslovak government offered him the opportunity to invest in the ailing government-owned Svit shoe company. Since

companies nationalised before 1948 were not returned to their original owners, the state continued to own Svit and privatised it duringvoucher privatisation in

Czechoslovakia. Svit's failure to compete in the free market led to decline, and in 2000 Svit went bankrupt. ]Present After the global economic changes of the 1990s, the company closed a number of its manufacturing factories in developed countries and focused on expanding retail business. In 2004, the Bata headquarters were moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, under the leadership of Thomas G. Bata, grandson of Tom Baa. In 2008, M. Thomas John Bata died aged 93 at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto at the age of 93 years old. M. Batas son, Thomas George Bata, became chairman and chief executive of the company in 2001, but the elder Mr. Bata remained active in its operations and carried business cards listing his title as chief shoe salesman. Today, the Bata Shoe Organization serves more than 1 million customers per day, employs over 30,000 people,[9] operates more than 5,000 retail stores, manages 27 production facilities and a retail presence in over 90 countries.

The red indicates countries where Bata operates [edit]Bata brands

Bata Store Wenceslas Square in Prague, the Czech Republic - 2005

Bata (Baa in the Czech Republic) Bata Comfit (Comfort Shoes) Ambassador (Classic Men Shoes) North Star (Urban Shoes) Weinbrenner (Premium Outdoor Shoes) Marie Claire (Women Shoes)

SunDrops (Women Shoes) Bubblegummers (Children Shoes) Baby Bubbles (Children Shoes) Safari (Desert Shoes) Power (Athletic Shoes) Patapata (Flip Flops) Toughees (School Shoes) Verlon (School Shoes) Teener (School Shoes) Bata Industrials (Work & Safety Footwear)

[edit]In popular culture

The 1968 Czech film All My Compatriots by Vojtch Jasn, in a scene set in 1948, refers to Baa putting small shoemakers out of business.

In Susan Elderkin's 2000 novel Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains one of the three narrative voices is Eva, a worker in a Bata factory in Partiznske, Slovakia.[10]

Emil Ztopek worked in a Bata factory in Zln.

[edit]See also

Baas Skyscraper, Zln Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto Bata shoe factory (East Tilbury)

[edit]References 1. ^ Bata Reminiscence and Resource Centre 2. ^ http://www.kilduffs.com/BATA.html

3. ^ Road film follows shoe empire" BBC News 28 August 2005 4. ^ Theresienstadt memorial archive 'Tom Stoppard Discloses his Past 5. ^ "And now the real thing" The Guardian, 22 June 2002. Retrieved 10 October 2010 6. ^ Dwork, Deborah; van Pelt, Robert Jan, Holocaust a History, W.W.Norton & Company, Inc., 2002. ISBN 0-393-051888-9 7. ^ Engle Schafft, Gretchen, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich, University of Illinois Press, 2004. ISBN 0-252-02930-5 8. ^ Dwork, Deborah; van Pelt, Robert Jan, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present, New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc. ISBN 0-393- 03933-1 9. ^ About Bata bata.com, March 5, 2013. 10.^ Review: A Slovak-Arizona journey Talk:Bata Shoe Museum From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Canada portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Canada on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Start Low This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. This article has been rated as Low-importance on

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{Request edit}

[edit]Untitled Dear Wikipedia Editors: I would like to make the following changes to the existing Bata Shoe Museum article, but I am employed by the Museum as a consultant. I don't know who originated the article - it's a good summary of the architecture, but it gives the impression that the Museum is nothing but the building. My main goal is to have the article describe a full picture of the Museum's activities. With the exception of one exhibition which ends in early April 2008, I am only mentioning past exhibitions and events so there is no promotion of specific current activities. Your feedback as to whether the content below is acceptable would be greatly appreciated. Also, I would like to add "Bata Shoe Museum" to

<Template:Toronto_landmarks>.

Thank you in advance - Chopine

1) REASONS FOR PROPOSED CHANGES TO EXISTING TEXT

(1) In the Introduction: Change "The Bata Shoe Museum, in Toronto, Canada, is a place dedicated to the history of footwear." to "The Bata Shoe Museum, in Toronto, Canada, collects, researches, preserves, exhibits and interprets footwear from around the world." (Reason: "a place" is unnecessary (if it's a museum, it's clearly a place), the collection spans many cultures and geographic regions, and this description is closer to the official definition of a museum, which we follow, and says more about what the Museum actually does.) (2) In "Building": Change "completed in 1991" to "completed in 1995". (Reason: this building was completed in 1995. The Museum was housed elsewhere in the early 90s. I propose to go into detail on this later on - please see below.) (3) In "Building": Change "The building consists of three stories above ground, and two below ground levels" to "The publicly-accessible part of the building consists of four stories". (Reason: one of the Museum's five floors is not accessible to the public, and people get confused if they read that there are five floors and then they come to the Museum and can only find four.) (4) In "Building": Change "throughout which are dispersed galleries, a resource lab, restoration facilities, a gift shop, offices, and storage." to "which contain four galleries, three lecture and multi-purpose rooms, conservation facilities, and a gift shop." (Reason: there is a difference between 'restoration' and 'conservation', and the Museum practices the latter. Also, the lecture and multi-purpose rooms are much more used by the public than the resource lab, which is really a library and is only open to researchers, and only by appointment. Finally, I suggest leaving out "offices and storage" because I think that's obvious, and not too interesting for most people.)

(5) In "Building": Change "its vast expanses of limestone are used as a backdrop for banners advertising exhibitions within" to "its vast expanse of limestone glows in the late afternoon sunlight". (Reason: less than 10% of the limestone is used as a backdrop for banners, and the sunlight on the limestone was an important part of the architect's vision.)

2) PROPOSED CHANGES TO ARTICLE

Bata Shoe Museum

Established Location Coordinates

May 6, 1995 Toronto, Canada 43.667278N 79.400139W

Curator

Elizabeth Semmelhack

Public transit St. George (TTC), Spadina

access Website

(TTC) www.batashoemuseum.ca

The Bata Shoe Museum, in downtown Toronto, Canada, collects, researches, preserves, exhibits and interprets footwear from around the world.

The Museum offers four exhibitions, three of which are time-limited, as well as lectures, performances and family events.

Contents [hide]

1 Untitled 2 History 3 Collections and research 4 Exhibitions 5 Public programs and events 6 Education, teachers' resources and online exhibitions 7 Building 8 Publicity 9 External links 10 Request for Comment 11 RfC: Requesting Editor Feedback on my Edit 12 A short summery about Bata Shoe Museum

13 Bata Shoe Museum

[edit]History The collection which became the Bata Shoe Museum originated with Mrs. Sonja Bata. As she travelled the world on business with her husband, Mr. Thomas J. Bata of the Bata Shoe Company, she gradually built up a collection of traditional footwear from the areas she was visiting. In 1979 the Bata family established the Bata Shoe Museum Foundation to operate an international centre for footwear research and house the collection. From 1979 to 1985 the collection was on display at the offices of [Bata Limited] in the Don Millsarea of Toronto. From June 1992 to November 1994 the Bata Shoe Museum welcomed visitors on the second floor of the Colonnade, an office and retail complex in downtown Toronto, and on May 6, 1995 the expanded Museum opened at its present location. [edit]Collections and research The Museum's collections, now numbering over 12,500 shoes and related objects, span 4,500 years of history and many cultures and geographic regions. Over the years, the Bata Shoe Museum Foundation has funded field trips to collect and research footwear in Asia, Europe, and circumpolar regions and cultures where traditions are changing rapidly (Siberia, Alaska, Greenland, the Canadian Inuit and the Saami people). The Foundation has also produced a number of academic publications. [edit]Exhibitions The Museum offers four exhibitions, one semi-permanent and three time-limited and changing. The semi-permanent exhibition, "All About Shoes: Footwear

through the Ages", features shoes from many historical periods and geographic areas, and looks at the significance of footwear in various cultural practices and phases of life. The three changing exhibitions are usually on display for one to two years, and may focus on a specific time period, cultural group, geographic area, or an aspect of material culture. The footwear on display, often remarkable for its construction and/or embellishment, also acts as a key to understanding its times, and illustrates social and cultural developments. Exhibitions have included: "The Perfect Pair: Wedding Shoe Stories" (20022004), "Paths Across the Plains: North American Footwear of the Great Plains" (20042005), "Icons of Elegance: Influential Shoe Designers of the 20th Century" (20052007), "Watched by Heaven, Tied to Earth: Summoning Animal Protection for Chinese Children" (20062007), and "The Charm of Rococo: Femininity and Footwear of the 18th Century" (20062008). [edit]Public programs and events The Museum also organizes lectures, performances, and social evenings, often with an ethnocultural focus or community partner. A representative activity would be "Step Into Tango: Milonga at the Bata Shoe Museum" (2008), an Argentinian tango evening featuring live music, dancers, a tango singer, Argentinian refreshments and a display of elegant tango shoes. Events often illuminate a personal connection or a cultural context in which footwear was created; for example, "In the Shoes of an Elizabethan Lady: The Passions and Scandals of Frances Walsingham" (2007) featured a curator's lecture and short concert of period music followed by an exhibition viewing. Themed family activities have included storytelling, music, arts and crafts, and trying on funky shoes. [edit]Education, teachers' resources and online exhibitions

Approximately 10,000 students come to the Museum every year on a field trip. Teachers, students and non-students alike also visit the Museum's online exhibitions: "On Canadian Ground: Stories of Footwear in Early Canada" and "All About Shoes", which latter features artifacts and information from some of the Museum's most popular exhibitions. "All About Shoes" also provides teachers' resources with classroom activities and projects. The best entries in the International Shoe Design Competition (2007), co-organized by the Museum and IFFTI (International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes), are also viewable online. [edit]Building Designed by Raymond Moriyama and completed in 1995, the structure sits on the southwest corner of Bloor and St. George Streets in downtown Toronto. Its form is derived from the idea of the museum as a container. Taking this further and associating it with footwear, Moriyama stated that the building is meant to evoke an opening shoe box, realised in a somewhat deconstructivist form with its canted walls and its copper-clad roof offset from the walls of the building below in an interesting play of volume and void. The main facade (north) along Bloor Street pinches inward to where the entrance, in the form of a glass shard, emerges, creating a more generous forecourt. This glass protrusion is one end of a multilevel 'cut' through the building which contains the main vertical circulation, providing a clear view through the building to the three-story faceted glass wall, designed by Lutz Haufschild, on the south facade. The entire stone volume appears to float above a ribbon of glass display windows on street level, and its vast expanse of limestone glows in the late afternoon sunlight. The publicly-accessible part of the building consists of four stories, which contain four galleries, three lecture and multi-purpose rooms, conservation facilities, and a

gift shop. Typical of most museums, the gallery spaces are neutral in design, allowing focus on the creative displays, not the building itself. However, traditional materials such as castbronze and leather (an important material in shoe creation for centuries) are used in signage throughout the museum. Raymond Moriyama said of the edifice: "Architecture is never the creation of the architect alone. The museum's architecture should be seen as a celebration not only of shoes but also of the wonderful vision that brought them into the public eye." [edit]Publicity The Bata Shoe Museum was featured in an episode of The Amazing Race: Family Edition, for which the contestants were in Toronto. Teams had to choose a pair of shoes, and find the woman who fit the selected pair amongst 100 candidates. [edit]External links Wikimedia Commons has media related

to: Bata Shoe Museum

Bata Shoe Museum official website Bata International [show]

Landmarks in Toronto

--Chopine (talk) 02:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Study the history of footwear.... at Toronto's very own SHOES< SHOES< SHOES... You can't even get this many shoes at the Shoe Company!!!!!!!!!!!! [edit]Request for Comment [edit]RfC: Requesting Editor Feedback on my Edit I am in a Conflict of Interest situation so I want to make sure my article is neutral please let me know if there's anything else I should do - thank you. Chopine (talk) 17:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC) Please make your desired changes. I'll return later to see if any modifications are needed due to the Conflict of interest policy. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 21:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Ed, Thank you. I'll make the changes within the next couple of weeks and let you know when they are done. --Chopine (talk) 01:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC) I think the proposed changes are good, and in keeping with the neutral point of view. - SimonP (talk)`

[edit]A short summery about Bata Shoe Museum Requested by Sonya Bata who had been painstakingly gathering a special collection of artifact since 1940s, Raymond Moriyama, a JapaneseCanadian architect took the responsibility of designing and construction of Bata Shoe Museum project after meeting Mrs. Bata and her collection. The building is 3 stories above ground and 2 underground which is made out of limestone covered by a clad lid plane as the roof to protect the historical treasures. The idea came from the shoeboxes that were protecting the shoes from the dust and light. The transparent entrance is also another interesting point of the building looking like it is sticking out of the hinged walls facing north. The reason of the hinged walls was to create more space for the pedestrians. The building is blending in with the surrounding buildings because of the colors of the limestone and is giving the last touches of class to the neighborhood. References: MAYS, JOHN BENTLY. "Ontario Craft." Ed. ANNE MCPHERSON. Toronto: Ontario Craft Council, Fall 1995.

Ghazal

Masteri

Farahani Preceding unsigned comment

added

by Ghazalmasteri (talk contribs) 21:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC) [edit]Bata Shoe Museum The Bata shoe museum which is located at downtown Toronto,corner of St. George and Bloor street. The museum was officially opened on May 6 1995, given the symbolic potency of shoes.The building which is designed by architech Raymond Moriyama,is an integral element to the museums overall presentation.Moniyama took up the idea of the building as container,

inspired by the boxes used to store and protect its holdings.The walls, which frame exhibition areas, are canted inward to the street level by 83.1 degree. The effects of this are: it creates a feeling of spaciousness and also provides a place for street performers, musician, and other public activities. Preceding unsigned comment added by Elenakhani (talk contribs) 10:48, 18 October 2010 (UTC)