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Tuesday Shoesday ~ High heels: show-stopper or back-breaker? Famous falls in skyscraper heels!

Wearing sky high heels may make you feel on top of the world, but as these celebrities highlight, there is a long way to fall when strapping on your favourite Christian Louboutin’s. So here are a few examples of why it may be best to play is safe with a pair of stylish but comfy women’s shoes on a day to day basis;

Catwalk models are seasoned pros in the stiletto department, however, Prada’s Spring 09 shoes proved too much for three of the models.  In particular, it’s hard not to squirm as you see the strains Katie Fogerty’s ankles were going through as she tried to keep her balance. This ending with her unzipping the gorgeous designer shoes before they caused her any serious injury, might be best to keep these as ornaments rather than footwear!

Similarly, Agness Deyn has also had her fair share of bumps and bruises on the runway falling twice in Naomi Campbell’s Fashion For Relief Haiti Benefit. Luckily, her upbeat charm managed to laugh it off and take a curtsey to hide the embarrassment and later tweeting about the falls hurting her knees.

Some of our favourite performers have also fallen with a thud in fast paced dance routines. Owning the stage in platforms is not as easy as celebrities make it look; Beyonce, Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez have all suffered heavy falls on stage from a slip of the heel. This is due to excessive pressure being placed on the foot whilst it is in an unnatural position which can cause sprains as well as long term damage to your feet, legs and back.

One star who is famous for her love of outlandish outfits is Lady Gaga. She has experimented with sky scrapers as high as 10 inches (and who can forget her Alexander McQueen specials!), but even her avante garde style has left her head over heels when she took a tumble on stage as this video shows;

She shows true showmanship and springs back up carrying on with a seamless performance. That is not to say that this hasn’t caused personal injury or upset to others in the past, celebrities are prepared to power through painful falls but they can easily cause muscle damage as the pressure on the knee is heightened.

So, is it really worth it? Carol Vordaman’s recent fall down several steps face first left her with a broken nose that had to be reset after she was rushed to hospital.  She counted herself lucky that the injuries were not more serious after her ankle boots left her more vulnerable. Ouch!

Overall, it’s a tough sacrifice admitting defeat from your favourite pair of toe-tappers, but if they are causing you serious pain and you are clinging onto friends or furniture for extra support then they may not be worth the long term injury. Bunions, sprains and more seriously, osteoarthritis, are all side effects from the added pressure to the inside of the woman’s knees caused from extensive heel wearing. Therefore, it is important to ensure that on a day to day basis your shoes are comfy and sensible, and perhaps save the stilettoes for a special night, that way we can ensure that shoes remain a lady’s best friend.

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Get the look – How to learn about fashion and style

     

It’s easy to assume that all those fashionistas you see on the street were born with an eye for style and an innate understanding of what looks good. In most cases though, they just know the right places to look to check out new styles, and what it takes to change a style from something they’ve seen into reality.

If you have even a small creative bone in your body, it’s likely that you too can learn about style if you know the places to look. Here are some tried and true methods to go from staring envyingly at an awesome outfit to decoding the style elements and incorporating them into your own look.

Look at your favorite celebs & style icons

If your goal is to learn about fashion so you can become more fashionable yourself, then the celebs whose outfits you most admire can be a great place to start. The trick is to not be overwhelmed or intimidated when you first being paging through Vogue and Hello or browsing Heatworld.com. These celebrities and models have stylists who are paid a great deal to come up with outfits for them, plus most have a bottomless wardrobe (not to mention designer freebies!) to choose from.

The good thing about stars having paid stylists is that you can steal their hard work for free, just by checking out their pictures. Pick out a few favorite celebrities’ looks and grab a notepad. Now you’re going to break down the major elements of the outfits you’ve chosen. Really look at what they’re wearing and what makes the style. Is it a tailored jacket with a flirty skirt (tutu even)? Coloured tights? Eye-catching accessories? If you’re like me, the same sorts of staple items will come up in many of your favourite looks. By the time you finish, you’ll have a list of different items you can begin incorporating into your own wardrobe.

Check out fashion blogs

Fashion blogs are excellent to have in your style arsenal, because in many cases they do this fashion decoding for you. Many pick out different style elements and highlight new looks; whether you’ already an avid blog-reader or not, they’ll help you understand the current trends. Refinery 29 is an excellent blog which breaks down current looks and makes suggestions for style combinations. Other blogs, such as Street Peeper and the Sartorialist, post pics of enviable street fashion from around the world. When you find styles you like, perform the same “style analysis” that you did on the celebs, breaking down the actual elements of the outfit in writing. In this way, you’ll be able to keep track of established and emerging trends.           

Keep an eye on street fashion

While street fashion blogs are certainly excellent at cataloguing worldwide trends, it’s likely that there are at least a few fashionable lads and lasses in your town; if you live in a city, then there are hundreds. In your daily comings and goings about town, look at people who immediately strike you as “put together.” Make a mental note of the major elements of their look—is she wearing stacked wedges, cutoff shorts, tribal prints? Be a style thief and look to others for inspiration. You’ll probably find that after a short while you’ll be able to improvise these put together looks on your own.

Read books & magazines

While books might seem like the opposite of fashion (old and dusty versus new and trendy), they can actually be great tools for learning about style. Look books and fashion books chronicle everything from vintage fashion to the latest trends, and can help you gain a little perspective on fashion’s evolution. The library will usually have the latest issues of Vogue and Elle, and these are always worth a look too. I personally love leafing through old issues in the journals archive to see how fashions have changed over the years (and sometimes have a giggle too – did anyone really wear that?!).

How do you go about re-creating celeb outfits? What influences your own personal style? Do you already read fashion blogs and what do you think about them? Leave me a comment! x

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