Here are new photos of the shoes Zaha Hadid Architects designed for Brazilian brand Melissa.
The moulded plastic shoes were launched last month.
Photos are by David Grandorge and used with permission.
More Dezeen stories about designer shoes:
Campana Brothers for Melissa
Jaime Hayon for Camper
Apprentice shoes by Doshi Levien
eBoy trainers for DKNY
Electric Light Shoe by Freedom of Creation for Onitsuka Tiger
Here’s some info from Zaha Hadid Architects:
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MELISSA [DESIGNED IN LONDON]
2008
PROGRAM: Product Design
CLIENT: GRENDENE S/A
Av. Pedro Grendene 131
P.O.Box 230
95.180-000
Farroupilha-RS-Brazil
ARCHITECT: Design Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Lead Design Ana M. Cajiao
Design Team Maria Araya, Muthahar Khan
MELISSA [BRAZIL]
The collaboration with Melissa expands Zaha Hadid’s portfolio to the field of fashion, creating an exciting opportunity to express spatial ideas in a different scale and through different media. For the fi rst time Melissa is collaborating with an architect opening a new research topic, diversifying its repertoire.
The design engages with the fluid organic contours of the body. The shoes asymmetric quality conveys an inherent sense of move-ment to the design, evoking continuous transformation. The concept addresses the perception of wearing the shoe in motion rather than a static display on a shopping window.
The shoes emerge from the ground and climb up the foot and leg with a soft elegant movement. The plastic organic quality of the choreography adheres to the skin. There is an implicit sense of lightness that blurs the boundary between body and object.
Advanced computational modeling allowed us to develop the product 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 mould technology, generating great synergy between the teams.
An overall strategy extends the design values to the packaging and marketing systems, sharing the same fl uidity and seamlessness of the shoes, and enhancing the experience of the product as a whole. The collaboration embodies the values of the brand creating and exciting product that is fun and new.
–
Posted by Marcus Fairs
October 24th, 2008 at 2:41 am
Sensuelita!
October 24th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Funny, explanation. Maybe they should get the designers at Nike to do some buildings, they’re handling of surface is even more impressive.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:33 am
very cool, though i wonder if they’ll give the wrong impression on women’s feet.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:37 am
i would have liked to see a photo of them being worn
October 24th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Even though these are not great looking shoes, I admire Melissa’s strategy.
They have a good collection of cheap, innovative shoes by the likes of the Campana Bros. and Vivienne Westwood…
October 24th, 2008 at 6:43 am
I feel like those would A. not be very comfortable, and B. make your feet look really awkward.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Almost as ugly as crocs.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:12 am
looks like crocs on lsd
October 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
une chaussure n’a d’intérêt qu’avec un pied dedans !
October 24th, 2008 at 8:35 am
The coolest thing is that they make your feet invisible.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I start having a nice conversation with an attractive, seemingly intelligent woman….suddenly from the bottom of my eye I catch a glimpse of the purple zahas adorning her feet…..next reaction.. ohh shit… “Emm, ohh… what time is it.”
October 24th, 2008 at 8:59 am
“The concept addresses the perception of wearing the shoe in motion rather than a static display on a shopping window…”
If so why then do we only see static images of the shoe? Why not shown them being worn or indeed being walked in? Maybe it is because they don’t look too good on and are difficult to walk in?
Admittedly I know nothing about shoe design
October 24th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I´m more and more convinced that Mrs. Hadid should quit architecture.
Buildings are not design objects, each and every excentric “gesture” makes construction hard and building performance worse (excepting some clever few ones that in fact did not pursue shape success).
Instead, if this (spectacular shaping) is the aim of her research, i´d like her to continue designing “exclusive” objects and, if building, temporary pavillions. I don´t like the shoes at all, but they look a serious concept for modelling rubber, though. See if someday her company shows the same smart understanding of how concrete and steell work at big scale. Will they learn anything from their objects?
October 24th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Quite bizarre, shoe making is quite a different profession then architecture as you can see…
October 24th, 2008 at 9:51 am
They look elven fantastic.
October 24th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Won’t this bunch of plastic make your feet smell?>:)
October 24th, 2008 at 9:54 am
where are the pictures on which we can see the shoes in use?
October 24th, 2008 at 10:29 am
These are coool !!.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:25 am
she’s definitely NOT a fashion designer
October 24th, 2008 at 11:36 am
This reminds me of a recent article on the coolhunter.net It’s also about great shoes from a architect.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:38 am
sorry forgot the link
http://www.thecoolhunter.net/fashion/United-Nude/
and
http://www.unitednude.com/index.php
October 24th, 2008 at 11:58 am
reminds me of my camper-wabi-shoes…
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/67/191741433_d9f790e74e.jpg?v=0
October 24th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
the funny thing is that there’s something of Zaha’s office buildings:always far from the user
anyway, i look forward to see some pictures of those worn
October 24th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 24th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
You got it all wrong. It’s not a pair of shoes.
This is the new museum of contemporary art in Dubai.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
OH NOEZEEE SHE DEZIGNEEZZZ ZEE SHOEZZZ!!
Well.. they sure look like Crocs on LSD! Yet, the Crocs look nicer.
But what the heck…. it’s Zaha! Lets all hail her and do the monkey dance! She is the best designer, best architect, best artist, best female, best BEST and best person on Earth since… EVER!!!!
October 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
humor: some architects design houses as shoes boxes….and some architects design shoes as they design buildings… who is right?
October 24th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
The problem with the design profession is that Famous Names sells.
Any good shoe designer is much more qualified than Zaha, Campana brothers and Karim Hashid for making shoes but Melissa insists in calling Famous Names to do the job. That´s really unfair.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Killing apin f? by Lagersfeld
http://www.chaussuresmode.fr/contenu/in-out/in-les-gun-shoes-de-karl-lagerfeld/
October 24th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Would like to see it on !
October 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
i see what she did there…(put a pair of soles on her architecture and called it a shoe)
October 24th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
May i remind you that shoe-box design is not always succesfull.
Don´t dare to think designing a box is easy. In this certain case study, i´m missing the look of the box, too. If this is supposed to be a smart design, i guess the box, labels, and wrapping paper should be carefully studied. Are they? Did they pay any attention to those “easy” and “obvious” details?
October 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Loooooovee themmm, I want them
October 24th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
que bellosssssssssssssssssss!!!
October 24th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
well,
i have melissa shoes. i love them! they combine comfort and style. i’ve always a comment, positive comment, everytime i wear them.
and zaha hadid design is not an exception. both signatures are there, her’s and melissa’s. cool!
btw, where the hell is the problem having an architect designing products or a product designer being involved in a building design?!?!?! more than ever it’s happening, and that’s the way it should be.
a creative is a creative, no matter what scale they work…
October 24th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
looks like these shoes are on drugs but still kinda sleepy
October 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Well, lets see how they do in sales before we trash them. There sure are alot of Hadid haters here. I bet if you took a design that people loved and then told them Zaha Hadid did they would begin to hate it.
As for the form. I wouldn’t judge which kind of designer is better suited, Nike designers or Zaha Hadid Architects. Thats’ really not the point. Melissa chose Zaha. That seems to be what counts here. With respect to form as an industrial designer I am more sensitive to swept surfaces and compound curves. I don’t think many thoughtful designers would disagree with this design direction. They may not be for everyone however, I would like to see them on a woman’s feet with a complete look.
As for colours, dating preferences and all the hyper-babel its wasted space.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:35 am
nice shoes…but can we see them on a freakn person!
October 26th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I have a small collection of Melissa shoes and they are fantastic.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:08 am
It looks like a feminine hybrid version of the Starck Puma http://www.landliving.com/articles/0000000277.aspx
and the Crock http://www.extremefootwear.com/CrocksShoes.html
I wonder how it deals with smelly feet…
October 28th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Check out the animation n images with the shoes on a ral pair of legs
http://www.melissaplasticdreams.com/home/usa
October 28th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
does anyone know where you can buy them? online? how much do they cost?
October 29th, 2008 at 9:58 am
…credit cruch…and what next? as architects have to fight for jobs even more hard, some like zaha change to the retail market. (I mean rem koolhaas started it years ago with the united nude line…and there are quite nice). there will be always women buying shoes…even these ugly plastic maya designed feet-covers. in a way I feel sorry for zaha… she tried hard …and it was not easy for women years ago to be accepted as good architects. but now it is all about commercial. one object looks like the other. where is the real design???? these shoes look like another computer generated exercise by some student!!!
October 29th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I liked a lot o/
I wanna buy for mee! I’m a big fan of Melissa shoes
October 29th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Girls wants to have fun, as she has talent, courage and sense of humor.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
There you go! I’ve been saying for a while now that all she does is design sneakers, not buildings, and here she goes to prove me right by designing shoes! Don’t be surprised if you see these as an opera house or museum of some kind in your home town soon.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I would love a pair of these
October 30th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
They look fashion but i want to get one pair to test them, i don’t think they are enough ergonomic. Even though i like them!
January 12th, 2009 at 6:16 am
I am a huge fan of Melissa (I now own 30 pairs) - they are the most comfortable, long-lasting, quirky shoes you will find! Contrary to popular belief, your feet don’t sweat more in these shoes than they would in any other leather or synthetic shoe.
I am looking forward to the release of Melissa + Zaha Hadid collaboration as part of the 2009 collection in February - it looks absolutely magnificent! They definitely make a statement, that’s for sure! Such a fluid design, much in the same vein as the collaboration with Karim Rashid (http://www.melissaaustralia.com.au/category/designer/karim-rashid)
May 16th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Can anyone tell me where I can find the costs of these shoes? I’ve been looking on the net but can’t seem to find the price.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
moderator… please disregard my post… I’ve now finally found a website where it shows the prices of the shoes. sorry for the bother.