Fashion Victim: Could style itself soon be called to heel?

Jul 10 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

IT HAS happened to us all hasn’t it. You spend hours getting ready, debating over which dress, which shoes and which handbag, then you take two steps out of the taxi – and snap! Your four-inch spike heel becomes a two-inch stump, you fall over and spend the rest of the night impersonating a flamingo standing on one leg.

Given my predilection for skyscraper shoes, I can’t tell you how many times I have come a cropper in this situation.

I have had to hobble to countless jobs because of snapped heels, and once had to stand on one leg for the entire duration of a very swanky fashion show after the heel simply fell off a brand new pair of shoes.

Just last week, I thought I was about to suffer hum-heel-iation yet again when one of my patent courts got jammed in a manhole cover.

Thankfully, the shoe came out unscathed, which is more than can be said for my colleague, Laura, who was left with a nice blue thumbprint bruise on her forearm from where I grabbed hold of her to prevent the inevitable flat-on-my-face fall.

This week, the issue of broken heels hit the headlines after a student won £7,000 compensation because a snapped shoe heel left her with a broken ankle.

Sophie King, 20, landed the payout after shoemakers Dolcis admitted her shoes, which broke on their first outing, were faulty.

Now there is panic that women the land over could be rushing to solicitors on the same grounds.

Far be it from me to get into the legality of this matter and possible ramifications for the future (this is a light-hearted fashion column, remember) but the whole episode has got me thinking about the other possible dangers lurking on Planet Fashion.

And admittedly a lot of them do revolve around footwear.

Doctors started warning about high heels’ potential for damage almost as soon as Roger Vivier knocked out his first pair for Dior over 50 years ago.

Meanwhile, just a couple of weeks ago, scientists told us that wearing open-toed sandals and flip- flops could increase the risk of contracting skin cancer, or “acral melanoma”, because of toes’ exposure to the sun.

Putting footwear aside and continuing the “where there’s blame there’s a claim” theme, could we one day then see jeans companies in the dock for causing infertility to men through spray-on skinnies?

Or maybe a future where thongs would have to carry government health warnings about the increased risk of yeast infections? And what about maxi-dresses? As someone who once got sent home from high school because the deputy head mistress believed that my skirt was so long it constituted a fire hazard, I would say these are one of the most dangerous items known to womankind.

Faulty shoes notwithstanding, though, perhaps all of these risks are simply the price we have to pay for being vain.

After all, isn’t that why they call us “fashion victims”?