Fashion Victim: Saving face when you’re heading for a fall

Sep 25 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

YOU know the scenario, don’t you. You step out in a pair of gorgeous killer heels and then you misjudge just the one step and oops! Over you go.

If you are lucky, that is all that happens. You wobble and then regain your composition.

If you are unlucky, you go for the full comedy effect. You roll, land on your bottom and, if the gods really have it in for you, your skirt will fall open and you will flash your pants to all and sundry.

As someone who is known for having a bit if a baby giraffe complex when it comes to balance, and also a predilection for very high shoes, this happens to me quite a lot.

Usually much to the amusement of my colleagues.

Fortunately, though, it has never happened to me on a fashion catwalk in Milan in front of the world’s press.

Although it did once happen when I completely misjudged the distance between my feet and the edge of a stage in a crowded club and fell right off – luckily it was pretty dark and amazingly I didn’t break anything – well, apart from maybe a smoke machine.

On Tuesday night, two Prada models were not so lucky. Come to think of it, it might have been the same Prada model twice – they do all look a bit similar these days.

Right in the middle of Prada’s "fall" collection – actually, it was spring/ summer 2009 but I couldn’t resist the pun – the two girls staggering along on what looked to be six-inch heels took a tumble and a thousand flashbulbs popping confirmed the moment had been immortalised forever.

To be honest, having seen some of the clothes in the Prada show (I have never really got the whole Miucca Prada as the saviour of fashion thing), the girls’ falls were the most exciting thing on offer.

I am sure the pair were mortified afterwards and wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them spent the night with her foot in the Champagne bucket.

Of course, these girls are not the first models to stumble on the runway.

Naomi Campbell famously proved even top supermodels can be wrong-footed when, 15 years ago, she came crashing down from a pair of bright blue Vivienne Westwood platforms with a nine-inch heel.

My advice for what it is worth, when it comes to high heels, is this – keep your head up, your shoulders back and your back straight, don’t drink too much and you should be fine.

Oh, and, if possible, always have a man nearby. They make great stabilisers and if you do go down there’s someone there to catch you.

* CHECK out the Prada models falling over at www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDdnvDLhZ2A