French manufacturers of prosthetics are breaking from tradition to develop fashionable artificial limbs with patterns and color so that wearers do not mind showing off some leg.
Two companies, Algo Orthopedie and U-Exist, have taken the lead in France and are trying to redefine the image of replacement limbs, which are manufactured from plastic resin and are usually skin-colored.
“A prosthetic worn with your granny’s stocking is just ugly,” said Alain Le Guen, an orthopedic surgeon and manager of Algo Orthopedie, which was founded in 2004 in Brittany in northwestern France.
Photo: AFP
“It has to be a bit of a work of art,” he added, so that “people aren’t shy about showing their leg.”
Le Guen believes that colorful prosthetics can help users accept their disability.
His company has seen rapid growth in the past few years, with production increasing from just a dozen designer limbs in 2016 to about 50 now.
Each limb costs 25,000 euros to 26,000 euros (US$28,164 to US$29,290) and is normally covered by the French public health system.
Users of Algo’s prosthetic limbs seem to take pride in them.
Bruno Paul, 55, sports an artificial left leg with a yellow-and-orange diamond motif.
The former metal-worker lost his leg in 2016, nearly 20 years after an accident in a foundry that led to about 20 operations to try to prevent an amputation.
“I don’t have my leg anymore, so why pretend to still have one,” Paul said. “I might as well accept my disability along with some color.”
Evelyne Briand, a 56-year-old who had her leg amputated in 2007, chose a striped blue-and-white design.
“The way people look at you changes when you have a colored prosthetic,” she said. “I’ve got another one in leather to go with my black dress.”
She had her leg amputated in 2007 after rupturing cruciate ligaments in her knee during a tennis match at the age of 25, which led to more than 40 failed operations.
Another company, U-Exist, joined the competition in 2014 and trains prosthetic designers — between 150 and 200 annually — as well as manufacturing its own line of stylish limbs.
“A prosthetic created to mimic the human body is frankly deceptive for the mind, not to mention that the appearance of a false limb can be troubling to other people,” founder and director Simon Colin told reporters.
Colin, whose interest in designs for prosthetics dates back to research as a student on the impact of personalized prosthetics, is a fervent believer in what he considers a form of art therapy.
About 250,000 people use a prosthetic limb in France and about 160,000 of them are built each year, Colin said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to