From high heels to ‘Zara death pants’: how fashion falls foul of women’s safety

High heels are the most common cause of fashion injuries to women. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian View image in fullscreen High heels are the most common cause of fashion injuries to women. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian From high heels to ‘Zara death pants’: how fashion falls foul of women’s safety A physio, a tailor and a historian on the style trends that can put women in hospital and how to avoid the dangers “Buyer beware” is one of the oldest principles in English law. Now, a pair of wide legged trousers from Zara is bringing the phrase back to the forefront of shoppers’ minds. On social media the £25.99 wide-legged trousers from the high-street retailer have earned the moniker “Zara death pants” thanks to a slew of videos showing wearers tripping over the leg of the trousers and injuring themselves. “These Zara pants need to come with a warning because now I have a fractured knee,” wrote one TikTok user below a video of them leaving hospital in a wheelchair. Some videos show wearers face-planting on pavements while others highlight bloodied knees and elbows, bruised limbs and broken fingernails. Lucy McDonald, a spokesperson for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and a physiotherapist at Restart, said that throughout her career she had treated injuries, including fractures and ligament tears, due to “fashion pieces that cause difficulty in movement and balance”. The most common culprits are high heels, but long trousers also feature. Despite the social media posts alerting wearers to the risks of Zara’s “lethal trousers” they continue to be a bestseller. View image in fullscreen Zara’s flowing wide-leg trousers. Composite: Zara It is not just Zara championing the wide leg; the style has been spotted at brands from M&S to Mango and Next. At John Lewis searches for the style are up 61% year-on-year, while linen versions are up 225%. This echoes the catwalk, with designers including Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartney showing long fits. On its website, Zara describes the trousers as being “longer than usual” with “a loose fit”. The accompanying imagery shows the fabric pooling around the model’s feet. In the sizing description, the total length of a size small is 108cm, while the large measures 109cm. Ruby Slevin, a tailor and the founder of Banshee of Savile Row, said the trip issue stems from the length of the in-seam. During the design process most high street brands use a “fit model”, a model with specific proportions who tries on the clothes to test for size and movement. To reduce costs, rather than hiring fit models some brands use a stationary mannequin that mirrors their typical sizing baseline. The national average height for women in the UK is 162.5cm (5ft 4in) but most fit models hover around the 178cm mark. “Fit models are not an accurate indication of an everyday woman,” Slevin said. “The length has to be in proportion to the person who is wearing it otherwise it is going to end up being problematic.” To ensur