NEW YORK (REUTERS) - Celebrated shoe designer, Stuart Weitzman has put his personal collection of footwear on display at the New York Historical Society.

More than 100 pairs fill the exhibit titled Walk This Way: Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes.

"They actually have been in our home on display like we would put art on display. I don't know that I'm not partial, but I've always thought of a lot of footwear and clothing as wearable art," said Weitzman.

"Designers create them and they are unique in design often especially the original versions of them and they're worth looking at. So we had them in prime locations throughout the house," he added.

Highlights include a pair of spectators pumps signed by the New York Yankees in the 1940s.

"The most priceless shoe here is the pair of spectator pumps from the early 1940s that Joe DiMaggio brought to the New York Yankee dugout and had signed by all his players as a gift to his girlfriend. This was way pre-Marilyn Monroe. And that is as far as we in the industry and in collecting world know, the only pair of signed shoes, and of course by a notable Yankee, as well as all of his wonderful teammates who did win the World Series that year."

For Weitzman, who is a second generation shoe designer, naming his most beloved shoe in the collection comes easy.

"My most favourite and most important shoe, is a shoe that was made by my father who was a wonderful shoe designer. So much so that I had no intention to try to follow him, it was - that competition I wasn't interested in."

The exhibit will run from Apr 20 through Oct 8, 2018.