Models Reveal Toll Of Fashion Week Circuit

A model at the Louis Vuitton show reveals her injuries.

New York, London, Milan, Paris – it may sound like a glamorous circuit, but models making the bi-annual Fashion Week round have hinted otherwise.

After a month of wearing heels high enough to make the average person trip over themselves, it seems most models might be better off wearing flats for the remainder of the year, with pictures surfacing of bruised, bloody and swollen feet in the aftermath of the 'majors' – the four most famous fashion weeks.

"When I got to New York, they were telling me like 40 times a day how to walk and they were always like 'Faster, faster, you're not going fast enough,'" explained Australian model Crystal Copland, who told WWD that "walking is a little different in Australia!"

Models that have been in the business for a while might be able to refuse to wear high heels (with the perfect example being Gisele Bundchen) but for many walking the runway at the international shows, it's a chance to prove their value as a model – even if it means subjecting their feet to daily torture.

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"Models know their feet are in for a tough time during the shows," an industry insider reportedly told the Daily Mail. "The majority of catwalk shoes, like the clothes, are sample size, normally a size 40. Unless they're lucky enough to have size 40 feet, the girls face four weeks of either squashing their feet into shoes that are too small, or trying not to fall out of shoes that are too big."

The insider added that for those less fortunate (ie, models with smaller feet), sample shoes were often "stuffed with cotton wool" in an effort to get the girls down the runway in the first place.

And it seems their feet aren't the only thing Fashion Week models have to worry about, with Copland revealing she'd "lost half her hair" in the past month, explaining that it gets ripped out by stylists in a hurry to make the show's deadline.

"But it'll grow back," Copland conceded. "I mean, you just have to think you're there to work and that's part of your work. That's how I get through it."


Fashion Week celebrity sightings.