These salon shoes, however, look practically quaint when compared to Iris van Herpen's snub-nosed bondage booty or Mr. Tatehana's aerodynamic platforms, which have no heel at all and look like slippers for a space alien.

WSJ: High-Concept Enchantments: Review of Shoe Obsession at the Museum at FIT

Similar technology, in the service of Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen's sintering hallucinatory cuirasses of solidified computer math, yields splendid contemporary examples of that Schlemmerian impulse, as do the animatronic garments of designer Hussein Chalayan, mediated wearable installations that they are.

WSJ: We Can't Know What the Future Will Bring | Fashion