Light-footed

“Tread lightly” is taking on a whole new meaning. Cobbler Edmundo Castillo—who is back this spring with his own collection after leaving Sergio Rossi—has designed a sandal that is literally radiant, using a featherweight, superflexible electroluminescent light created by Oryon Technologies, the Dallas firm responsible for the costumes in the new Tron film. “I was thinking of Tron while I was working,” Castillo says. With the push of a discreet button, his classically pretty sandal can be set to either emit a steady beam or flash on and off; to recharge it you simply plug a USB cable into the wedge heel. “It’s not decorative—the shoe is made of the light,” he emphasizes. “It’s completely functional.” Chrissie Morris is also obsessed with brilliance and performance. “I want to bring a sportswear ideology to high heels,” says the British-born designer, who recently paired stingray, a notoriously difficult skin to handle, with reflective nylon. “It’s essentially a very feminine, elegant shoe, but when it catches the light, all of a sudden—bam!—it’s a power shoe.” Like Castillo, Morris referenced sci-fi, although her film of choice was David Lynch’s Dune. “Those space suits with the oxygen tubes,” she says. “I was thinking of that when I decided to pipe the stingray with the nylon.”