Making the feet fit the shoes

By ANDREW BUNCOMBE in Washington

In a world where shoes can equal sex appeal, women's feet have become the latest front in the battle for bodily perfection.

Doctors in America say increasing numbers of women are paying thousands of dollars to go under the knife in order to get the perfect pair of feet - or at least the sort of feet that will slip into a pair of high-end, designer shoes.

Breast implants? Forget it. Nose job? Been there. Shortening one's toes to fit into a killer pair of Manolo Blahnik slingbacks? Sure, why not?

Spurred by advertising and product placement on shows such as Sex in the City, doctors say women are increasingly being sold on the idea of beautiful but painful high-heeled footwear, as often as not designed by men who would not dream of torturing their feet in such a manner. The result is often very harmful.

More than half of the 175 members of the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society who took part in a recent survey said that they had treated patients for problems resulting from cosmetic foot surgery. The society is poised to issue a statement condemning such surgery.

Dr Sharon Dreeben, an orthopaedic surgeon from La Jolla, California, and chairwoman of the society's public education committee, said: "I think it's reprehensible for a physician to correct someone's feet so that they can get into a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

"It's not nipples, it's feet. Shoes have been around for 8000 years and there have always been different styles. But the obsession has grown over the last few years and I am sure it is due to programmes such as Sex in the City. Every time you turn on the television you see [such advertising]. It is trying to persuade people that if you have these shoes you'll look like Sarah Jessica Parker, you'll have her job and you'll be on television."

In the popular television series, Parker's character, Carrie, is a devotee of Jimmy Choo. At his New York store at 645 Fifth Avenue, an ordinary pair of his shoes could set you back $600.

Just a few streets from this emporium of fabulous footwear, Dr Suzanne Levine is happy to perform surgery on women who want to be able to get their feet into Choo's shoes. Levine, a podiatrist who has been featured in many women's magazines, said critics of such surgery failed to understand the importance some women attached to wearing high heels.

"Some of these women invest more in their shoes than they do in the stockmarket," she told the New York Times. "Take your average woman and give her heels instead of flats and she'll suddenly get wolf whistles on the street. I do everything I can to get them back into their shoes."

One of Ms Levine's recent patients was Jennifer Cho, a 27-year-old lawyer who had started to develop corns from wearing high heels. To deal with the problem, she had the toes on her right foot shortened. "This will help me wear the shoes I want to wear," she said.

It is not just the height of shoes that can cause damage. A 1991 survey revealed that up to 90 per cent of women regularly wear shoes that are between one and two sizes too narrow.

Around 80 per cent of all foot surgery is performed on women, primarily because their shoes are too tight.

Doctors say some high-end designers are gradually making shoes that are stylish yet good for the feet. Others, however, do not try to disguise the fact that their products are designed purely for looks.

Manolo Blahnik, the Spanish designer who makes some of the most sought-after shoes in the world, once admitted: "About half my designs are controlled fantasy. Fifteen per cent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs."

The cosmetic surgery is not cheap. At her clinic, the Institute Beaute, Ms Levine charges $2500 to shorten a toe and $500 for a collagen injection into the ball of the foot to restore padding lost from years of wearing high heels.

Demand for such surgery has risen by 40 per cent over the past three years. "These women come in and they say, 'I just came from my other podiatrist who told me to stop wearing high heels and I don't want to do that'."

The price of style

* Shorten a toe - $2500

* Collagen injection to ball of foot - $500

* Jimmy Choo shoes - $600

- INDEPENDENT