Collection
Traditional Tools
The craftsmanship of footwear is a complex process that has maintained the same phases of production for centuries, and that requires the shoemakers to have very special skills achieved after years of learning. In order to carry out this whole process, the collaboration of all family members and some assistants, who shared the tasks between men, women and children, was once common. First of all, the shoemaker took the customer’s measurements, made the patterns from the chosen design and prepared the skin cuts. A former had previously been in charge of the realization of the form. Subsequently, the women were in charge of sewing the leather cuts that were then assembled by the men, placing them on the shape of the wood, and sewing, also, the templates, the spin and the sole. It was also women’s own work related to the completion of the shoe, such as painting and cleaning the footwear. The children, for their part, were in charge of the simplest works such as glueing or looking for the materials.
The Museum of Footwear and Industry has a wide selection of tools for the manual manufacture of footwear dating from the 20th century ceded by old shoemakers from the region, which show the large number of specific subprocesses necessary for the realization of footwear in a traditional way.
Industrial machinery
The development of the industrial machinery came from the mechanization of the old manual processes of footwear manufacturing. More than 100 operations are needed to make a shoe and each machine is designed to carry out a very specialized part of the process. The complexity of the production of footwear is such that, depending on the type of model followed, it is necessary to use some machines or others. Inca and the Raiguer region have been differentiated by the elaboration of a type of high quality shoe of traditional origin called Goodyear. This type of shoe, very comfortable and of great resistance, is characterized by a double sewing that joins, on the one hand, the body of the shoe on the tour, and on the other, a second outer rebound that fixes the sole in this piece.
The selection of machinery exhibited in the Museum of Footwear and Industry serves to illustrate the most important phases of the laborious manufacture of Goodyear footwear in an industrial way: the design and shape, the patterning and the cutting of the skin, the windowing, the assembly, the finish and the packaging.
Auxiliary industries
Shoe manufacturing is a very laborious process that requires a large number of different procedures and a high degree of specialization. So much so that during the 20th century a series of companies emerged, most of them in Palma, attracted by the strong demand for products necessary for the manufacture of footwear: tanning, factories of shapes, heels, rubbers, soles, tensors, freses, betums and chemicals, colas, shoes boxes and distributors of ornaments for shoes and specialized machinery.
The train, which arrived in Inca in 1875, facilitated the commercialization of the footwear produced throughout the Raiguer region and allowed it to arrive more quickly to the port of Palma for export. On the other hand, electricity generation was a primary resource for the footwear industry, as it allowed optimizing the operation of machines in factories. Between 1901 and 1915 electrification was a reality in most of Mallorca.
In the Museum of Footwear and Industry you can see a sample of objects belonging to the auxiliary industries of footwear, among which an extensometer to test the elasticity and the breaking point of the rubbers, a drum to tannins skins, a leather loom, a ribbon display and other ornamental accessories for shoes, tatxes, soles, tapas and photographs of rubber heels, magazines and photographs
Photographic tribute
The region of Raiguer has been the cradle of many generations who, one by one, have transmitted the knowledge related to the world of shoe and auxiliary industries. In order to pay tribute to all these men and women who for centuries have made their work a hallmark of the industry of Mallorca, the Museum made a popular call in 2018 to receive photographs of people linked to the sector. The aim was to dignify and value the tireless work of small workers, who have constituted the bulk of the human capital that has made Raiguer the main industrial area of the island. In addition to the photographs received from the popular call, the monument of tribute exhibited in the Museum can also be read some names in representation of the large number of shoemakers and shoemakers registered in the region from 1885 to the present.
Collection shoe
The industry of Mallorca has specialized in the design of high quality leather shoes for men and women, but also in the manufacture of espadrilles, sports shoes, footwear for children or orthopedic footwear. Many companies have been open to following the most innovative fashion trends. Even local designers have created models that have become trendy, and their creations are known worldwide.
In the permanent exhibition of the Museum you can see a magnificent collection of shoes made by various Majorcan companies throughout the 20th century. Although each shoe is the reflection of a particular way of understanding footwear, a joint vision of the entire collection shows a common link: the conception of the shoe as an object of high quality carefully worked from the artisan essence, despite the introduction of industrial machinery in the manufacturing process.
Today many of the factories present in the Museum have already closed their doors. However, there is still a prestigious group of footwear companies that continue to be active and produce products of high quality and national and international relevance. This is the case of Lottusse, Miquel, Bestard, Comes, Camper, TLB, Carmina or Vidal, a sample of which can be seen in the showcase of the “Calçat avui”.
Footwear and fashion
The evolution of footwear from the most traditional to the most modern forms has always been related to the changes in clothing of each era. In Mallorca, the abandonment of traditional clothing – one of the peculiarities most admired by 19th-century travellers – was accompanied by the introduction of footwear models more in line with international trends. Over time, as the traditional dress was relegated to folkloric uses, shoes also began to notice influence from foreign designs, as the manufacturers of the region adapted Italian and French models to their footwear productions.
In fact, during the decades of the 40s, 50s and 60s of the 20th century, the magazine MODA Y LÍNEA, edited in Mallorca by Miquel Trobat, was the reference publication in shoe fashion in Spain. It provided very extensive information on trends at regional and international level. The most renowned designers published their models, and showed how the famous characters of each moment were wearing. The publication also included reports and advertisements of machines, accessories and auxiliary objects of all kinds for the manufacture of footwear. In addition, MODA Y LÍNEA allowed its readers the possibility of making themselves the models that appeared on their pages by ordering the pattern corresponding to the desired model. In the last pages of the publication was announced the Technical Academy Trobat, directed by the magazine’s own editor, which was based on correspondence teaching of modeling and footwear patronage directed “to both sexes”.
In the Museum of Footwear and Industry you can see, and even browse, a selection of copies of the magazine MODA Y LÍNEA and other similar publications, which emerged between the 40s and 60s of the 20th century.
Advertising in the sector
The marketing of the product is, as in the rest of the industries, an essential phase in the entire footwear production process.
In the 1930s, some Inca businessmen, with a clear vision aimed at better exporting their products, used English in their advertising and commercial branding. In those years, the factory of Llorenç Fluxà had a brand seal in English: The Shoe Lottusse. Trade mark, and manufacturer Mateu Pujadas announced his footwear under the Sanson Shoe brand. But it was from the sixties of the twentieth century, at the time that mass export to Europe was restarted and the US market opened to Mallorcan footwear, when the large footwear factories thought that one of the ways to make their product attractive, in view of being able to export, was to assume a trade name that “was” abroad. Thus, from the Majorcan adjective used to express that something comes from the field, “camper” (with an accent on the last syllable), the Camper brand emerged, converted into a flat word that granted a more Anglo-Saxon phonetic. Some of the most typical names of Majorcans such as George or John were transformed into George’s and Yanko (Joan, Hungarian). The surname Coll, combined with the flexible adjective, which referred to one of the characteristics of the shoes manufactured by the company, gave rise to the name Kollflex, and also the surname Ballester was created the name of another important shoe factory: I’m dancing.
The Museum of Footwear and Industry exhibits a selection of reproductions of labels of boxes of shoes, business cards, advertising sheets (the flyers of the time), press announcements (the most important ones arrived in national newspapers such as ABC and La Vanguardia) and posters from the end of the 19th century to the present.
The Wunderkammer of footwear: curiosities and art
The Wunderkammers, also called the Wonder Chambers or cabinets of curiosities, were small private rooms full of peculiar objects from the most diverse parts of the world. In an intimate atmosphere they exhibited a wide variety of collections from different disciplines that combined science, art and superstition. There were fossils, plants, insects, creatures with deformities, exotic animals, finds from the latest expeditions, artistic pieces, antiques, scientific instruments, and also cans with “dragon-blood”, and skeletons of what they considered mythical animals at that time. Although the chambers of wonders, which emerged in the 16th century, disappeared between the 18th and 19th centuries, these are considered to be the direct predecessors of today’s art and natural science museums.
Our particular Wunderkammer is a free interpretation of the cabinet of curiosities. It has a set of fantastic collections of objects, all of them linked to the world of footwear. The pieces on display include historical shoes from different parts of the world, bizarre models, a collection of shoes and miniature industrial machinery, and an incredible collection of works of art inspired by shoe forms by such important artists as Louise Bourgeois or Chema Madoz.
