Getting to the bottom of shoe acceptability

TORONTO -- I was concerned that walking into the Bata Shoe Museum in my blue Chuck Taylor high tops would be like bringing a basketball into the Football Hall of Fame.

So I was relieved when the museum's director, Emanuele Lepri, assured me my Converse All Stars were OK.

I've noticed Chucks seem to be more popular in stores in Toronto than in Chicago.

The bohemian Queen West shopping district is a mecca for the canvas shoe popularized by Indiana basketball player Chuck Taylor. Check out Da Zone, 468 Queen Street West (www.da zone.ca), and nearby Groovy, 323 Queen Street West (www.groovyshoes.ca). At both stores I found high tops from the Converse Kurt Cobain collection. Cobain wore Chucks. The limited edition series features drawings and writings from his journals.

"Toronto is a great shoe city," Lepri said. "You walk a lot, so you need good shoes. And our winters are long. So you get to change your shoes when you go indoors. That's an opportunity to lead two lives with your shoes in the same day."

I asked Lepri if flip-flops were shoes. "They are not shoes but they are footwear," he answered. "We have beautifully adorned African sandals in our museum. They are flip-flops in a technical sense, but you have gold leaf sculptures on top of the flip-flop."

What about those hideous plastic clogs called Crocs?

I felt like I put my foot in my mouth.

"We have a few issues with those," Lepri said sternly. "We haven't come to terms with Crocs yet. There's a limit to everything." -- Dave Hoekstra