From the corsets of the Victorian age to the fad diets popular today, woman have been suffering in the name of fashion for hundreds of years. Some fashion fads seem to come out of nowhere while others are sponsored by popular media icons and artists who are hailed for their sense of style. Fashion icon and pop singer Lady Gaga has recently brought mainstream attention to yet another fashionable style seemingly designed to bring pain to its followers.
Seen wearing sky high heels from multiple unique designers such as Alexander McQueen and Noritaka Tatehana, Lady Gaga has managed to convince some of the fashion-forward to torture their feet by wearing almost gravity defying heels, some as many as 9 inches or more off the ground. As hard as it is to balance in regular heels, some women seem bent on learning how to walk in these super high and awkwardly shaped adaptions to footwear.
When swarms of women started to copy Lady Gaga’s interesting take on shoes the medical community took note. High heeled shoes have been criticized for years for putting unnecessary pressure on areas of the foot and heel that are not designed to carry most of the body’s weight in the distribution allowed for by high heeled shoe’s designs. While the new, taller and more interestingly shaped shoes sported frequently by Lady Gaga might cause a wearer to be more prone to twisting and ankle after a slight misstep, most podiatrists agree that these kinds of shoes are no more harming to the wearer than a standard heeled shoe.