Deadly Fashion Craze Sweeps Europe And Asia — Now Spotted In The U.S.

(Before It's News)

 It’s very possible that you, or a family member, have shoes in your closet–right now–that have the potential to kill, maim or disfigure.  These shoes are so deadly, some countries are lobbying for laws to add warning labels on the footwear. They want to force manufacturers to run public safety announcements (PSAs) on TV and radio cautioning consumers of the dangers inherent in these far out, freaky, foot-fashion fads.

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Don't step into an early death

Platform pumps and stiletto heels are a fashion fad to die for. Literally.

Fiendish, too-tall footwear is responsible for a recent death in Japan and numerous injuries around the globe. As stilt-like, stiletto heels soar to new heights, women are teetering on the edge of severe injury every time they risk life and limb by putting on a pair and attempting to walk more than a step or two.

Designed to be deadly

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Diabolical designers who have no concern for public safety take a sadistic glee in extending heels to higher and higher altitudes, imitating the bizarre footwear of celebrities like Lady Gaga — known for her absurdly tall platform shoes that often resemble those worn by Frankenstein’s monster. Gaga’s cliff-high, clunky shoes are often so extreme, she needs someone on each side of her to keep her upright and help her walk.

Death by platform shoes

Japan is well known for setting trends and styles—and for embracing extreme fashion and running with it. However running is not something anyone should ever attempt to do when wearing platforms or super-high heels–even walking can be fatal.

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As reported by the BBC, a Japanese nursery school teacher fell off her skyscraper shoes and ended up with a fractured skull that resulted in her death. You would expect to die if you fell from five stories, but a five inch fall can be fatal too. Just as a pointy stiletto in the side can cause instant death, apparently so can a pointy stiletto on the sidewalk. Depending upon where and how you fall off your shoes, injuries range from minor scratches and bruises to death.

Deaths escalating

Japanese journalists report that since the late 1990s, there have been at least five fatalities credited to platform shoes. One young woman was driving her car when her clodhopper footwear became stuck under the brake pedal. As she attempted to extricate her fashionable foot, she lost control of the car and crashed into a pole, dying shortly after the crash.

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Responding to the increase of deaths and injuries from extreme footwear, some regions of Japan are expanding their laws prohibiting the use of getas (traditional wooden clogs) to include wearing platform shoes when operating a motor vehicle. They hope to reduce the number of shoe-related, auto accidents and save lives and limbs from devastating injuries.

Lotus shoes for lotus feet

Over a thousand years ago, and up to as recent as the early 1900s, an excruciatingly painful Chinese custom existed. Little girls were forced to endure years of foot breaking and binding until at maturity their feet had been transformed into tiny triangles thought of as beautiful.  

Starting as young as 2 years old, girls had their feet broken, bent and bound numerous times until their deformed appendages reached the Chinese ideal:  a foot that would fit into shoes no longer than 3 or 4 inches in length.  A normal woman’s foot was deemed ugly and provincial while the petite but crippled lotus foot was seen as fashionable and sensual.

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Besides the extreme pain that these little girls had to endure their whole life—and the fact they could barely walk—they also risked a deadly consequence of foot binding: gangrene.

Some female’s feet were bound so tightly that circulation stopped and gangrenous infections ended up taking their young lives.  All this agony– and even death–occurred just so Chinese women could look fashionable in their teeny, tiny, itty, bitty lotus shoes.

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Safety ratings for shoes

It took China a thousand years to stop torturing female children with foot binding, but UK safety experts say they are not going to allow sky-high platforms or stiletto-style shoes to get a free pass much longer.

According to spokesperson Mark Hunter of the British Standards Institution (BSI), an organization that creates quality standards for goods and services, consumers need to know how dangerous their foot wear is.  "We do not want to stop the fashion industry being creative and people from enjoying their shoes,” but he believes people need protection and awareness about the devastating deformities and injuries that are caused by these over-the-top shoes.

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Hunter wants platform shoes to have a safety rating to protect consumers from their shoes and to ensure that “consumers are getting shoes that are safe for them."

The BBC reported that last year alone, some 200,000 people in the UK were treated for serious injuries caused by their shoes. Another 10,000 people reported minor injuries from falling, tripping and losing their balance due to hyped-up heels and pumped-up platforms. If Hunter has his way a caveat emptor will come with every giant-sized, heel sold in the UK.

Doctors warn: extreme heels equal extreme danger

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Fetish style footwear is not fashionable, it’s foolish, say many doctors who are disgusted with treating young, healthy women for injuries that may cripple them for life. 

Extreme heels, 5 inches or more, are unstable, wobbly and not made for walking more than a few feet at best.  Doctors warn that until this deadly fad falls out of fashion, women are risking a fall that can incur devastating consequences—like shattered bones, knocked out teeth, deep lacerations and ripped and torn tendons.

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These are just some of the injuries hospitals and doctors are beginning to see in the US. now that platforms are increasing in popularity. Thankfully, no American deaths have been reported due to falls from super-spiked heels or towering platform shoes—yet, but as shoe heels continue to get higher and higher, injuries become more and more severe and fatal injuries are inevitable.

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