Bata was founded by three siblings with a small inheritance in the town of Zlin, Czechoslovakia on August 24, 1894. It was one of the world’s first shoe “manufacturers”; a team of stitchers and shoemakers creating footwear not just for neighbours, but for distant retail merchants.
Less than 10 years later, Bata produced 2200 pairs per day, employing resourceful imaginations, skilled hands and modern machinery to keep up with demand. Innovative shoes styles were developed with new customer-sensitive ways to promote them. And despite the outbreak of the First World War, material shortages, manpower shortages, and cartels, sales increased to about two million pairs per year by 1917. The Bata legacy had just begun.
In Zlin, Bata built housing, schools and hospitals around the factory for its workers and their families- a design it would replicate in other parts of the world in years to come. Bata provided inexpensive rent and food during very difficult times, because founder Tomas Bata firmly believed business should serve the public.
Less than 10 years later, Bata produced 2200 pairs per day, employing resourceful imaginations, skilled hands and modern machinery to keep up with demand. Innovative shoes styles were developed with new customer-sensitive ways to promote them. And despite the outbreak of the First World War, material shortages, manpower shortages, and cartels, sales increased to about two million pairs per year by 1917. The Bata legacy had just begun.
In Zlin, Bata built housing, schools and hospitals around the factory for its workers and their families- a design it would replicate in other parts of the world in years to come. Bata provided inexpensive rent and food during very difficult times, because founder Tomas Bata firmly believed business should serve the public.
For over 13 decades, Bata has been on the leading edge of footwear design. Today, professionals in Bata’s Shoe Innovation Centres around the world continue the tradition of innovation as they dedicate themselves to discovering new shoe materials, developing modern shoe technologies, and creating fresh footwear that marries style with comfort.