Brilliant: The Art of Beaded Footwear Around the World

This fall, the Bata Shoe Museum (BSM) presents Brilliant: The Art of Beaded Footwear Around the World, a major new exhibition exploring the artistry, labour and cultural significance of beaded footwear across more than 400 years of history.

On view October 22, 2026, until April 2028, the exhibition brings together more than 85 objects, primarily drawn from the Bata Shoe Museum’s international collection, spanning Africa, Europe, South Asia, Turtle Island (North America), and Western Asia. The exhibition also provides an opportunity to discover many artifacts, including new acquisitions, that have never before been on view.

Found on footwear across cultures and continents, beads have long been used for both decorative and symbolic purposes, expressing status, identity, and spirituality. Fragile and painstaking to apply by hand, beadwork requires extraordinary skill, care, and time. Brilliant examines this intricate art form while revealing the distinct histories, traditions, and meanings embedded within beaded footwear from around the world.

Brilliant is curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator, Bata Shoe Museum; Nishi Bassi, Curator and Manager of Exhibitions, Bata Shoe Museum; and Justine Woods, Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design, The New School. Together, the curatorial team explores beadwork as a meticulous form of embellishment used around the world for both decorative purposes and to convey deeper cultural meaning.

The exhibition also traces the technologies and developments that helped shape the history of beadwork, exploring the evolution of bead making, the invention of glass beads, the continued importance of hand-beading during the rise of industrialization, and the global spread and application of beadwork.