John Mott: The Forgotten British Inventor Who Lit Up Sneakers Before Anyone Else

Sneaker history is full of big names. Phil Knight. Adi Dassler. Reebok’s Foster brothers. Icons of innovation whose stories are retold again and again.

But hidden in the shadows is a man whose invention quietly shaped a generation of childhoods, playgrounds, and sneaker culture without him ever receiving the credit he deserved.

His name is John Mott, and in 1994 he invented the world’s first self-powered light-up shoe. Not a toy. Not a gimmick. A piece of technology that remains state-of-the-art even thirty years later.

The secret ingredient was a strip of piezoelectric film. Thin, flexible, and sensitive, this plastic generated electricity every time it bent. Mott saw what others didn’t: that a heel strike, the most basic motion of walking or running, could be harnessed to power a light.

So he built it. He placed the film inside an ASICS trainer, linked it to a tiny LED, and turned the simplest of steps into a flash of energy. No batteries. No switches. Nothing to recharge or replace.

It cost him more than £13,500 (£33,000 in today's money) to create that first prototype. For an independent inventor, it was a staggering sum. But when he tapped the heel against his palm and watched the bulb light up, he knew he was onto something.

The BBC thought so too. His invention appeared on Tomorrow’s World, the legendary programme that showcased future technology. There it was, live on television: a trainer that lit up with every step. The audience could hardly believe it.

And here’s the kicker: the shoes still work today. Three decades later, Mott pulls them out, taps the heel, and the light flickers to life. The technology hasn’t aged a day.

Mott thought the hard part was over. He had proof. He had prototypes. He had public validation. The next step, surely, was to find a partner who could take it global.

His first stop was Nike. He flew to Oregon, the belly of the beast, carrying his invention like a golden ticket. He pitched Phil Knight’s team directly, showed them the shoe, demonstrated the glow. They said no.

“It still hurts,” he says. “When you know it’s right and someone says no, that sting never leaves.”

From there he crossed America to pitch Reebok, a brand with British roots in Bolton. If anyone would back a homegrown inventor, surely it would be them. Again, no. adidas. No. Clarks. No. One by one, the biggest footwear companies in the world turned him away.

The doubts crept in. "Maybe they’re already working on their own version. Maybe theirs is better. Maybe I’m too late." But every time the doubts piled up, he went back to the prototype. He flicked the heel, saw the light, and reminded himself: "this works. This is good. Somebody will see it."

That somebody turned out to be Mitch Brabson.

At a massive sports trade show in the U.S., Mott tried again to get a meeting. But the signs were everywhere: “No Inventors Allowed.” Booth after booth was walled off. Reception desks kept outsiders at bay. The message was clear, the big brands didn’t want to be pitched by lone inventors.

Frustrated, Mott pulled his shoe out of the bag, slammed it down on a counter, and watched the heel light up.

At that exact moment, Mitch Brabson, an ASICS product director, happened to walk by. He glanced at the desk, stopped dead in his tracks, then doubled back like a cartoon character.

“DON’T MOVE,” Brabson said. And just like that, everything changed.

Mott was pulled behind the booth, introduced to ASICS executives, and finally, finally someone saw what he had been trying to show the world all along.

The Japanese sportswear company was stunned. They had experimented with switches and wires, clumsy attempts to make shoes light up, but none came close to Mott’s elegant, self-powered solution.

He was flown to Japan to present to the company’s leadership. There, in a vast boardroom in Kobe, he met Mr. Kihachiro Onitsuka, the founder of Onitsuka Tiger (now ASICS), along with seventy-five of the company’s top engineers.

Mott stood at the head of the table, nervous but prepared. He flicked the piezo film, tried to show the LED sparking to life, but under the harsh fluorescent lights, it barely showed.

Thinking quickly, he ducked under the long boardroom table, lifting the cloth to create darkness. There, in the shadows, the light danced clearly.

To his astonishment, Mr. Onitsuka, well into his eighties, got down on his knees and joined him under the table. The two men knelt side by side, passing the glowing strip of film between them, wordless but united in wonder.

When Mott looked around, he saw the seventy-five engineers had all followed. Except they weren’t kneeling. Out of respect, they lay flat on their chests, because none of them could position themselves higher than the company’s founder. Dozens of men, faces pressed into the carpet, craning to watch a tiny bulb flicker in the dark.

“You couldn’t make it up,” Mott says. “That’s how the light-up shoe was born.”

With ASICS on board, the light-up shoe was set for a spectacular debut. The plan: during the Los Angeles Olympics, the torchbearer would run into the stadium at night wearing Mott’s shoes, the soles flashing with each stride. A global audience would see it.

The stage was set. The shoes had been tested again and again. Nothing could go wrong. But then, under the blazing floodlights of live TV, the effect vanished. The stadium was lit like midday. The world saw the torch, but not the shoes. Years of work and planning disappeared in an instant.

It should have been crushing. But in truth, it didn’t matter. Behind the scenes, the shoes were already a hit. Families loved the visibility. Kids adored the glow. Shops couldn’t keep them in stock.

By Mott’s reckoning, the light-up shoe went on to become the second-best-selling footwear feature in history, behind only Nike Air.

So why is John Mott not a household name in sneakers?

Because he never chased it. His name wasn’t printed on the box. There was no PR campaign to promote the inventor. He licensed the technology to ASICS who then went on to create the GEL NITE-LYTE (1993) and then developing a second version called the GEL TWYLYTE (1994). Over time, other versions of light-up shoes hit the market, often using simpler battery-powered systems. Mott’s original idea and his role in it faded from view.

Even now, the internet will miscredit others with the invention. His journey of developing the light-up shoe was featured in Sneaker Freaker's Issue 48 "It's Lit" by Hamish Craig, however only the real footwear fanatics were able to tuck into the pages worth of great stories!

“If I tell someone I invented them, they don’t believe me,” Mott says. “But the proof’s all there. The patents. The BBC footage. The prototypes that still work. What more do you need?”

Today, Mott still has the original ASICS prototypes. They still light up, thirty years on. He’s preparing to auction them, a rare opportunity for collectors to own a true piece of sneaker history.

And he isn’t finished. He hints at another invention in the works, something he believes could even surpass the light-up shoe in impact. You can find out what exactly this next invention is by bidding in Lot 15A or 15B when the auction goes live on the Friday the 5th of September via the Andrew Smith & Son's website.

Looking back, he shrugs at the struggle, the rejections, the missed Olympic moment, the years it took to break through. “I just wanted kids to be seen at night,” he says. “That’s all. The rest was just the journey.”

It wasn’t a brand. It wasn’t a marketing gimmick. It was John Mott, in Britain, in 1992.

A man with a strip of piezoelectric film, a vision, and a belief strong enough to keep going until the world caught up.

You can bid for John Mott's Light-Up Shoe Prototypes by heading over to the Andrew Smith & Son's website. The John Mott Sporting Prototype Collection: Innovator and Inventor will be live from Friday the 5th of September 7pm and ends on the 14th of September at 7pm.

Over 130 Lots will be availble with a zero pound reserve on items ranging from the first ASICS Light-Up Shoe Prototype, to carbon fibre Golf clubs and even Concept drawings of the shoe's themselves. It is a hugely unique auction and one that the industry has never seen the likes of!

At The Sole Supplier, we believe the future of footwear deserves to honour the past, especially the parts most people never saw. John Mott didn’t just invent a shoe that lit up. He lit the path that brands would follow for decades.

We hope you enjoy reading this story as much as we enjoyed documenting it!