Melissa and Zaha—Shoe La La!

Melissa, the eco-conscious, hip and happening plastic (vegan!) shoe company based in Sao Paulo, announced August 4 that it has commissioned Pritzker Prize-winner Zaha Hadid to create a limited-edition shoe that will be released in September. It is the first time the architect—whose internationally renowned projects and commissions range from the Guggeheim Hermitage Museum in Lithuania to the Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck, Austria, to the London Aquatic Centre, which will be built for the 2012 Olympics—has ventured into the footwear forum. The shoe is described by Melissa as consisting of “rounded sculptures, harmonized lines, and symbiotic openings.“

“The project with Melissa is about creating something fun and new—something that feels good. The design engages with the fluid organic contours of the body, and the asymmetric quality conveys an inherent sense of movement, evoking a continuous transformation. We designed the shoes to emerge from the ground and climb up the foot and leg with a soft, elegant movement. There is an implicit sense of lightness that blurs the boundary between body and object,” Hadid said in a press release. “We used advanced computational modeling to develop the design and establish a dialogue with Melissa in order to bring the design to the production line. This challenging process employed 3D printing and rapid prototyping techniques as key tools for refining the ergonomics of the shoes. The fluidity of the design was a perfect match with Melissa’s plastic injection mold technology, generating great synergy between the teams.”

The company—which has been in operation for more than 25 years and has produced more than 50 million pairs of shoes—reports that the shoes, in a color palette personally chosen by Hadid, will retail for approximately $350.