Gross ‘Cinderella Surgery’ Can Make Your Shoe-Dreams Come True

It’s like something out of a fairy tale: a New York princess can’t fit into her Louboutuins, so she calls her fairy godmother plastic surgeon and he snips little pieces off her feet until her shoes fit like magic! And then she and her shoes live happily ever after.

As much as this might sound like a plot point in some horror-themed installment of Sex and the City, elective foot surgery is actually a thing that more than a few women are choosing to do. You can get your toes shortened or lengthened, your bunions removed, and even get fat injected into the bottoms of your feet so you have a permanent Dr. Scholls made of flesh, according to the New York Times‘s report on the surgery-for-shoes phenomenon.

Apparently women get surgery to correct “high heel foot” (when your foot is stuck in the shape of a high heel) or “hitchhikers toe,” (when your big toe sticks out.) Some doctors have even gotten requests for toe liposuction, which they’ve denied. Dr. Oliver Zong, who founded NYC Footcare and coined the term “toebesity,” once had a woman ask him to remove her pinkie toe (he didn’t do it.)

“Cinderella surgery” is just the latest in a long line of gross things women do to fit into clothes. Some women elect to have botox injected into their calves to slim them down for certain boots and skinnyjeans (although the process is dangerous, because of the major arteries in the legs). People get butt implants to channel Beyonce and J.Lo. Even guys are getting beard implants so they can participate in the lumberjack fad.

Let’s just take second to remember that in the original Grimm’s fairy tale, the evil stepsisters cut off their heels and toes to try to fit into the glass slipper. Then they got their eyes pecked out by pigeons for being shallow. Just saying.

[NYT]