Museum Opens on the Heels of Celebrity

Imelda Marcos’ 3,000 pairs of shoes may have been an international joke, but here in the shoe-making capital of the Philippines they’re no laughing matter. The former first lady, city officials say, put Marikina on the global map.

Within the next month or two, Marikina will formally say “thank you” to Marcos. In a stone building on Shoe Street, built in the Spanish colonial era and used by the Japanese to store rice during World War II, this city in metropolitan Manila will open the nation’s first footwear museum. On display will be 200 pairs of shoes that the irrepressible, flamboyant jet-setter Marcos wore on her worldly wanderings.

“The first lady was a world-class celebrity, and when someone like that is wearing the Marikina label, you know you’re making world-class shoes--like Gucci or whatever,” said Mario Villanueva, the museum’s curator and Marikina’s director of tourism.

“Newspapers around the world made a big fuss about madam’s shoes, and some of the stories weren’t so nice. They didn’t even say the shoes were made in Marikina,” Villanueva said. “So now we hope people will realize she really helped the Philippines’ shoe industry. A lot of her shoes were gifts from admirers, and not reflective of extravagant personal spending.”

When President Ferdinand E. Marcos and his wife fled Manila for Hawaii in February 1986 following a popular uprising, the first lady left behind 3,000 pairs of size 8 1/2 shoes in the basement of Malacanang Palace, arranged by color and neatly stacked on row after row of wooden racks. More than half the shoes were later stolen or could not be accounted for.

With the billionaire Marcoses in exile, the government opened the palace to the public. The display there showing 1,200 pairs of the former first lady’s shoes proved to be one of the Philippines’ top tourist attractions, for locals and foreigners alike. The government tired of all the attention given to the Marcoses and put the palace off-limits to the public in 1992.

A humbler celebrity might shudder at being the star attraction of a shoe display. But not Imelda Marcos.

“As soon as I told her Marikina wanted to build the museum,” recalled her friend Sol Vanzi, “she said, ‘That’s perfect. What can I do to help?’ ”

Marcos has promised to show up at the official opening and provide personal histories for each pair of shoes at the museum--among them calf-high black leather boots she favored on European shopping trips, open-toed linen espadrilles for casual affairs at Malacanang, silk hand-embroidered shoes for a state dinner in Saudi Arabia, alligator pumps for a quick get-together with friends for caviar and champagne.

Now 70--she wore gold and glass slippers with rhinestone butterflies at her birthday party in July--Marcos returned to Manila after her husband’s death in 1989. She served one term in Congress and ran unsuccessfully for president in 1992 and 1998. A conviction for graft that carried a 12-year prison sentence was overturned by the country’s Supreme Court last year.

Although the government is trying to reclaim the Marcos fortune, saying it was looted from the state treasury, the ex-first lady remains popular with the poor, who see her--perhaps erroneously, many say--as a champion.

“I take more time dressing up, making myself presentable for the poor than I do for the rich,” she said in a 1997 interview. “The people are looking for certain symbols, and when you reach a certain level in public life, part of your obligation is to provide those symbols.”

Shoes became the symbol of the woman who coined the word “Imeldific” to mean any grandiose action done with flair and style. She supported the century-old shoe industry in Marikina by sending tanners and designers abroad to learn their craft and, of course, by wearing Marikina shoes, about 60% of which are still made by small family-run businesses. The industry has made this city prosperous by Philippine standards.

Even though much of her original collection of 3,000 pairs is gone and many government officials would dearly love to make her poor again, Marcos does not have to worry about ever being barefooted. Friends and fans still send her shoes. She keeps them in the family home in San Juan, here in metropolitan Manila, on a new set of endless wood racks. At last count there were 2,000 pairs.

“The world thought people were laughing at me when they saw how large my collection was,” she said in the interview. “But I’m proud of these shoes. They show I’m frugal and never throw anything out, especially when something is a gift.”