A brave Long Island fashionista who was born with a club foot but dreamed of wearing “gorgeous high heels” did the unimaginable — she had her leg amputated so she could teeter around in stilettos.
Mariah Serrano, a 21-year-old assistant designer for American Rag, underwent the painful procedure — and she doesn’t regret it one bit.
“The fashion rule is that you take off three pounds for every inch of your heels and I was like ‘Oh my God, I look dumpy,’” she said.
“I wanted to be a sexy teenager in high heels but I knew it couldn’t be.”
Beyond the discomfort of walking on a disfigured leg that was becoming increasingly painful with age, Serrano struggled to look like the other girls in her high school who often called her “gimpy.”
“I felt silly in pictures, I was the only one in these shitty little ballet flats,” she recalled.
“I had to wear all sorts of braces. It was uncomfortable and frustrating because they weren’t solving the problem and I often felt embarrassed.”
The glamour girl wore patterned knee highs and flashy tights to mask her deformity. She even dyed her hair pink to distract people from staring at her leg. She eventually stopped going to classes and was home-schooled.
“Kids are mean,” she said. “It made things very hard.”
“A lot of times I felt left out because I loved to dance and go out.”
But even more mortifying for the teenage girl, was being forced to wear sneakers to prom.
“I was really devastated in the mall,” she recalled, after shopping for four hours to find a chic shoe.
“I was of course sad, it sucked. Obviously I was a teen and I dramatized it but I thought it was the end of the world.”
She began seriously considering amputation in April 2009 after a specialist suggested that a prosthetic leg would be more comfortable and could work better with heels.
“As soon as he said it, I thought this is exactly what I need,” she said.
“I was obviously in shock, but it felt like a good situation.”
She teetered on the idea until her doctor handed her an article about a pair of prosthetic legs that Alexander McQueen designed for athlete and model Aimee Mullins.
“He was the reigning queen of fashion and that was exciting and reassuring and much easier to accept,” she said.
Serrano went through the amputation in June 2009 and wore her first pair of heels about six months later on New Years Eve.
“I remember the first I stood up and walked around in heels,” she said.
“I wore Alice + Olivia basket woven wedges. It was amazing.”
It’s still difficult for her to walk in heels, so her shoe collection is controlled. She can only wear two-and-a-half to three inch heels.
She started a blog called “Confessions of a One-legged Fashionista” where she details pulling off stylish looks with a prosthetic leg.
She said she wants to incorporate her prosthetic leg into fashion design. Her brother Mason started a charity called the Octopus Project that raises money for prosthetic research.
“I’m appreciative of this experience,” she said.
“For me, it was an amazing solution to have control over my life again.”
Additional reporting by Jennifer Bain