15. BATA
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When I was in primary school, all students were required to wear black shoes. These shoes weren’t supposed to be trainers or sneakers, they were supposed to be proper office-wear black shoes. Any other color of shoes — even brown, the second most popular color, wasn’t allowed. Those who didn’t adhere to this rule were punished or even sent back home. Today, it’s ingrained in almost every Zambian kid that black shoes are meant for school.
Black shoes from one particular brand were always on the list of things that comprised the school uniform in many government schools (or should I say public schools, for my American audience). This was intended to maintain uniformity from head to toe. This particular brand of shoes was Bata.
Originally called The T. & A. Baťa Shoe Company, Bata was founded on August 24, 1894, in the Moravian town of Zlín, Austria-Hungary. Its three founders were Tomáš, Antonín, and Anna Baťa.
When the Second World War was over, its factories in socialist states were nationalized, while its branches in capitalist states remained family-owned.
Bata Corporation is now a footwear and fashion accessory manufacturer and retailer headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Despite its enormous size with operations worldwide, Bata is still family-owned. The company is organized into three business units: Bata, Bata Industrials (which makes safety shoes), and AW Lab (which focuses on sports style).
In the news, Bata is usually overshadowed by other shoe brands like Nike or Puma, but you’d be astounded to learn that Bata is the world’s leading shoemaker by volume. This is possible because it has a retail presence of over 5,300 shops in more than 70 countries, and production facilities in 18 countries. Some people may wear Bata shoes without even realizing it.
So, what made Bata shoes the most loved footwear in most Zambian schools? To begin with, they had a standard look. What does this mean? They looked like normal shoes striped of adornments and other things that would suggest some sort of style. As far as the school authorities were concerned, their style-free look was perfect because it maintained uniformity among students.
Secondly, Bata shoes were strong. It was very rare for them to be damaged or worn out. The only time the student would need another pair is when they outgrew the other pair. Just as an aside, being a second-born child who wore hand-me-downs, the durability of Bata shoes frustrated me because I never got new Bata shoes. Instead, I got the ones my older brother outgrew because as far as my mother was concerned, those shoes were in perfect condition to be one to school by her second-born son. To be fair she was right, but you know how intense the desire for the new is among kids.
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Another reason why Bata shoes were so loved can be attributed to their clever advertising. In one ad, they claimed that Bata shoes made shoe polish last longer on them. I remember watching a Bata shoe ad in which a young boy wearing Bata shoes inadvertently steps into dirty water on the ground and gets very upset. His mother approaches him and calms him down by telling him, “It’s all gonna be alright.” Like magic, the mother wipes the boy’s wet shoe, leaving it as shiny as it was before the boy stepped into the water. The ad ends as the camera zooms in on the young boy’s bright smile.
The message of the ad was clear: Bata shoes make it possible for you to save on shoe polish expenses. How? By ensuring that you didn’t have to apply polish to your shoes every single day. To me, even as a young boy, that was magical.
I know this may not be appealing to people who walked on tarred roads or were driven to school, but for some of us who walked on gravel roads to school, that was a game-changer. You would arrive at the school gate with your shoes looking brown due to the accumulation of gravel dust on them. But with just a little bit of wiping (or brushing if you carried a shoe brush), those shoes would return to their original color — black.
Today, Bata shoes are not as popular as they were during my primary school days. This may be because these shoes are now too expensive for many families to afford. Many kids in government schools come from poor families, making it difficult for them to own a pair of Bata shoes. As such, many of these kids have opted for second-hand shoes which may be just as strong and sometimes in very good condition. What’s more, they can be brought at a fraction of the price of Bata shoes.
Although students from primary to high school still wear uniforms, uniformity in footwear is no longer maintained. There’s now a variety of American and European shoe brands, which is where many of these now popular second-hand shoes come from.
We could see this as a negative and cry for the good old days when every student wore Bata shoes. However, I choose to see it as a positive. We now live in an individualistic world that values freedom of expression. Sameness among people is no longer as valued as it once was. After all, we’re no substitutes for one another.
Remember that saying, “You can tell a person’s personality from the shoes he/she is wearing”? Maybe, just maybe some students will be free to express their personalities in the shoes they wear to school.
Despite its waning popularity among school kids, Bata remains a major player in the shoe business. In addition to its once-popular Toughees school shoe brand, Bata now makes trainers, office shoes as well as boots.
Bata shoes may not be the darlings they once were among school kids, but for those of us who went to school in Bata shoes’ heydays, they’ll forever hold a special place in our hearts.
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