by Hebden

Created on: July 17, 2008

Cankles (where the calf and ankle are indistinguishable from one another) fall under the same category as that other word hybrid, mandals (where man and sandal meet), in that they both refer to the lower extremities and both are something that most people feel sorry about when they happen to other people and mortified if they happen to themselves.

Because to most women, and sadly the cankle occurs most frequently in women, the foot and ankle are potential areas of beauty. They may not have Angelina Jolie's lips, or the body of a model, or any of the other body parts that magazines tell them they should envy. Other parts of their body may fall prey to the effects of weight gain or age but, theoretically, the foot and ankle should do their part so that, no matter what, you can wear a gorgeous pair of shoes.

Sadly Mother Nature sometimes refuses to play nicely so the question arises, "what should you do if you have cankles and want to disguise them?" And so, here are a few suggestions:

1) Wear boots. Not as facetious a suggestion as it first appears. Knee-length boots will create a solid line from calf to toe that will lengthen the leg and eliminate any trace of cankle. Ankle-boots will hide the offending area and add a funky look to your outfit.

2) Wear dark tights. For much the same reason that I suggested knee-length boots you may want to invest in some high-denier tights; the eye will be drawn to the leg in general and not the ankle.

3) Wear shorter skirts, knee-length and above. Much as you don't want an neon sign pointing to your cankles you don't want to wear a skirt length that draws the eye to that area.

4) Wear floor-skimming pants. Luckily wide-legged trousers that pool on the floor are fairly popular at the moment (though probably not with your dry cleaner who will shudder as they wonder what you walked through to cause that stain) so there a decent number of choices when it comes to this style of pant and it's a great choice for those of us who like to follow the idea of "out of sight, out of mind".

5) Wear leg-warmers. Like it or not, eighties fashion is making a comeback and both slogan t-shirts and leg-warmers have been sighted again. So although a certain age group will think Flashdance when they see them they are an option for younger cankle sufferers who didn't live through the eighties and need to have some embarrassing fashion moments that they can look back on in future years and regret.

Apart from these clothing suggestions there is the, somewhat Zen, advice that instead of disguising your cankles you glory in them. Throughout history we have seen changes in what has been considered physical perfection'; who are we to say that at some future date the cankle may not be regarded as a vision of flawless beauty? Perhaps now is the time to become a trendsetter, embrace your cankle (figuratively as a literal interpretation may cause injury), and say to the world "these are my cankles, bow down and adore them".

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