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

“Buyer beware” is one of the oldest principles of English law. Now Zara’s wide-leg trousers are bringing that statement back to the forefront of shoppers’ minds.

on social media Wide leg trousers, £25.99 Products from the high street retailer have earned the nickname “Zara death pants” thanks to a number of videos showing users injuring themselves by tripping over the trouser leg.

“These Zara pants need to come with a warning because I now have a broken knee,” he wrote a TikTok user Below is a video of him leaving the hospital in a wheelchair.

Some videos show users face-planting on pavements, while others highlight bloody knees and elbows, bruised limbs and broken nails.

Lucy McDonald, a spokesperson for the Chartered Physiotherapy Association and a physiotherapist at Restart, said she had treated injuries throughout her career, including fractures and ligament tears, caused by “fashion items that make movement and balance difficult”. The most common culprits are high heels, but there are also long pants.

Despite social media posts warning users about the risks of Zara’s “deadly trousers”, these trousers remain among the best sellers.

Zara is not the only champion in wide leg; This style has been seen on brands from M&S to Mango and Next. At John Lewis, searches for the style are up 61% on last year, while linen versions are up 225%. This echoes the catwalk, where designers such as Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartney showed off long dresses.

Zara states on its website that the trousers are “longer than usual” and “loose fit.” The accompanying images show the fabric gathering around the model’s feet. In the size description, it is stated that the total length of the size Small is 108cm and the size Large is 109cm.

Ruby Slevin, seamstress and founder of Banshee of Savile Row, said the travel problem was due to the length of the seam.

During the design process, most high street brands use a “fit model”, a model with specific proportions who tries on clothes to test size and movement. To reduce costs, some brands use a stationary mannequin that reflects typical body measurements rather than renting fit models.

The national average height for women in the UK is 162.5cm (5ft 4in), although most fit models hover around 178cm.

“Fit models are not a definitive indicator of the average woman,” Slevin said. “The length must be proportional to the person wearing it, otherwise there will be problems.”

To achieve this, Slevin said the customer’s hip measurement should be used as a guide for how wide the pants should be cut. “A person who is 5ft 5in tall cannot wear the same width of trousers as someone who is 5ft 10in. It’s like wearing the wrong pair of shoes. It’s not safe.”

He suggested high street shoppers take their trousers to a local tailor or dry cleaner to have them adjusted.

Fashion historian Virginia Hill said wide-legged trousers first became popular in the 1920s, when women began wearing loungewear. He pointed out that fashion clothing has a rich history of being impractical or dangerous. Introduced by Parisian designer Paul Poiret in 1910, the hoop skirt had a hem so tight around the lower legs that women could barely ruffle it. A headline from the time read: “Skirts are so tight around the ankle that movement is severely hampered and speed becomes impossible.”

In 1927, American dancer Isadora Duncan was killed when her silk scarf became tangled in the wheels of the convertible in which she was traveling.

In 2009, model Abbey Lee Kershaw tore her ligaments when she fell while wearing high heels on the Rodarte catwalk, while Lindsey Wixson revealed that multiple catwalk injuries, including a linear tear to her big toe, forced her to take a year off work in 2017.

The most common fall injury is a broken wrist because people extend their hands to break the impact, Macdonald said. Getting the foot caught in the fabric could cause ligaments to tear, and hip problems were also common, but the severity depended on how the person landed and the state of their bone health.

Injuries can take anywhere from six weeks to nine months or longer to heal. “You’re going to end up with at least a very large bruise,” Macdonald said. “My advice is simple: Don’t wear anything that could increase your risk of falling.”