Sassy slingbacks in hot-pink satin, with ruffles. Japanese sandals cut from a round piece of wood. Rubber flip-flops that could be jigsaw puzzle pieces. Turkish goatskin shepherd's slippers that smell terrible.

These are among more than 70 sole-ful artifacts showcased in the exhibition "Stepping Out: Footwear From Around the World," at the University of California, Davis, Design Museum.

It opens Monday and continues through July 12. Curator-guided tours and a reception begin at 1 p.m. May 17.

The exhibition reveals that fashionable, funky or simply functional, the shoes we choose to wear say plenty about us.

"The shoe is an element we wear every day, but it can reflect social impact and cultural influence and economic situations," says Adele Zhang, who manages the Design Museum's collection of more than 5,000 textiles. "When people look at shoes, they might say, 'Oh, how cool,' or 'Oh, how weird,' but there are meanings behind them."

Perhaps the most famous shoe maven in modern times was Imelda Marcos, the former Philippines first lady, who traveled the world - and splurged on designer footwear - while millions of her countrymen lived in poverty.

She and her husband, Ferdinand Marcos, fled the presidential palace in 1986 after an uprising. The press reported she left behind 3,000 pairs of shoes, arranged by color on wooden racks.

Marcos said it was just 1,060 pairs.

Historically, shoes were a necessity, bits of animal skin wrapped around the feet for warmth and protection. (The Web site www. headoverheelshistory.com has a timeline of shoes.) Over time, shoes became many things: a fashion accessory, a status symbol, something that helped you run faster, jump higher, look cooler.

Against a dark-blue backdrop in the Design Museum, a small array of footwear tells many stories, real or imagined - from the ground up.

Classy red grosgrain high heels from the 1960s look like something Jackie Kennedy or Audrey Hepburn might have worn. Beat-up leather mules, which are quite heavy, could be a relic from the Summer of Love. And the tiny Chinese slipper is a souvenir and not something actually worn by a 19th-century woman whose feet were bound in cheesecloth to keep them the size of a 6-year-old's.

It's fun to imagine who wore the metallic-gold lamé boots, or the stylish red-rubber Italian rain boots (they are anything but "galoshes.") And the woman who put her feet into the platform sandals with 6-inch heels might as well have tried walking on sticks of butter.

"Fashion shoes have a cycle, and these are back," says Zhang, shaking her head. "So do we make fashion victims, or do we use fashion to make our life better? That's something we do as designers to teach our students: You are going to be a leader in the fashion industry, and what is your social responsibility?"

The university's design collection began in the early 1960s as a teaching tool, seeded by the donation of a Peruvian girl's costume.

Since then, the Design Collection has grown to several thousand "global and endangered" textiles, costumes, baskets, furniture, porcelain and architectural drawings, most donated by university faculty and alumni, or members of the community.

The artifacts began to make their way out of the classroom in 1982, when the Design Museum mounted its first major exhibition.

Nora Cary, a 22-year-old, fifth-year senior from Winters, curated "Stepping Out," along with Zhang. (The exhibition's display was designed by Omar Gutierrez, 22, an interior-design major from San Jose.)

Cary, whose dream is to become a textiles conservator, chose from among 300 pairs of shoes in the collection.

"Shoes," she says, "are immensely appealing. Women in particular love shoes. They are tangible objects that are ubiquitous, in that you see them every day, but can be artwork, handcrafted, and encompass a lot of aspects of design that I'm interested in."

Cary was particularly drawn to a pair of handmade Chinese shoes with an upturned toe (like a genie might wear.) She is amazed at the handiwork: A narrow length of orange ribbon was folded into tiny pleats and each was carefully stitched into place. Nearby is a pair of American Indian moccasins, decorated with colored beads.

"I love drawing parallels with shoes from across the world that resemble each other," Cary says. "I tried to choose shoes that are representative of world culture: women's, men's, vintage, casual. I think people will be able to find themselves somewhere in here."

Women's shoes far outnumber men's shoes in this exhibition. Don't miss the brown wingtips.

And there are obvious omissions:How can they not show those awful rubbersoled Famolare platforms we stumbled around in during the early '80s? Or the classic Frye boots that looked so great with prairie skirts?

"We struggled with: Just how comprehensive do we want this display to be?" says Tim McNeil, Design Museum director. "We felt we could go out and search and have a real survey of footwear. However, we wanted to get the collection out in view and show the variety, and just supplement it here and there, because we felt we couldn't do justice to the whole history of footwear with the space limitations we have. So we instead focused on the collection."

Among the displayed shoes are sneakers made from recycled materials and Japanese snow boots of woven rice straw.

Zhang wore such boots as a girl in China.

"They are a perfect example of how people adapt natural materials into their daily life to design something functional," she says. "We are emphasizing 'green' very much in our curriculum.

Design should be socially responsible. We tell students that they should lead the market and decide what is better for our society. "Design is no longer only about making it pretty or copying from fashion magazines. We have to think about social responsibility. And this collection is a treasure we're anxious to share with the community."

Already, Zhang and Cary are plotting a future exhibition from the Design Collection: hats.

Call The Bee's Dixie Reid, (916) 321-1134.