Drawn entirely from The Mint Museum’s permanent collection of shoes, Pumped is the first exhibition to view this collection through the lens of craft. The ancient tradition of shoemaking has much in common with other crafts represented at the museum, such as ceramics, glass, and metalwork. Like them, shoemaking at the highest level of quality requires a thorough knowledge of one or more materials with unique characteristics—in this case mainly leather, but also fabric, plastics, and other substances.

As with other crafts, industrialization changed shoemaking, enabling mass production and introducing new materials. However, the desire for custom-made footwear continued and that was reflected in the persisting existence of traditional methods.


Nowadays, shoemaking automated techniques and more artisan processes co-exist, especially as in the last decades a resurgence of interest in the crafts has intensified. Entrepreneurs working in studio settings but using few machines have much contributed to the phenomenon.

In the twenty-first century, others have used innovative technologies such as CAD (computer-assisted design) and 3D printing to radically rethink the design process and end product.

Pumped: The Art & Craft of Shoemaking, organized by The Mint Museum, features footwear ranging in date from the early 1700s to 2015, and will be on display until the 31st of July.