A CATWALK craze for 6in-long earrings to match skyscraper heels is spreading to the high street, with cosmetic surgeons warning they will be needed to rescue the damage to ear lobes.

Fashion commentators are predicting a trend for dangly, heavy earrings this year.

Michelle Obama wore big earrings on presidential election night. Kate Beckinsale, the British film actress, sported some so long at the Golden Globes it looked at first glance as if she had found a new place to stash her aviator sunglasses. Zac Posen, the New York designer, made them so huge that they wound down and round the neck and morphed into extravagant necklaces.

The problem is that the ear lobes are not designed by nature to carry such furniture.

Plastic surgeons report a big increase in requests from women whose ears have split in two or sagged to the jawline under the weight.

Some women are even asking for pre-emptive surgery to strengthen their ears for what will be a big season for earrings.

Louis Vuitton, the French fashion house, has already produced a wood and resin pair for the catwalk 6in long and known as “Madmax”. They will go on sale in the UK later this month for £580 a pair.

Wearing heavy earrings can cause the holes from piercing to elongate, sometimes to the point that the earring tears all the way through the lobe.

Ear lobes will not repair themselves, so surgery is needed to stitch the two pieces of flapping skin back together. The operation takes about 20 minutes under local anaesthetic and costs about £300 an ear. The patient can have her ears repierced after about six weeks.

James McDiarmid, a consultant plastic surgeon based in Plymouth and Cheltenham, who has performed more than half a dozen ear lobe repair jobs, said: “Women are being damaged by fashion earrings. Usually we can refreshen the edges and put them back together and repair the ear front and back.

“It is not just splitting. The lobes swell and they have lumps the size of a marble that look like dumb bells on either side of the lobe.”

David Gault, a London-based plastic surgeon who specialises in ear reconstruction, said: “Pre-emptive operations could be done in the future using cartilage from within the ear and putting it on the lobe to strengthen it.”

Some doctors use a synthetic compound called Restylane to plump up the ear lobes and make them stronger. It is injected in a simple procedure after the ear lobes have been frozen with a numbing gel. The lobes are left toughened for up to a year.

Andrea Georger, 24, a recruiting co-ordinator, has suffered ear damage after wearing huge earrings while competing in beauty contests and had a Restylane implant to strengthen her lobes last year.

“When you’re hanging chandeliers from your ear, you’ve got be cautious,” she said.

If the shoe doesn’t fit ...

It is not only earrings that are helping to shape the future of plastic surgery.

Women are seeking reduction surgery to shorten long toes so that they can show off a perfect arc in their 8in Christian Louboutin stilettos or strappy sandals.

Others are having operations to narrow their feet to fit into the slimmer shoe styles such as those created by Manolo Blahnik, made famous by Sarah Jessica Parker in the TV series Sex and the City.

Another popular procedure is liposuction on the calves, so women can squeeze into knee-high boots, or eliminate “cankles” - calves that appear to go straight into the foot without a dainty ankle.

Plastic surgeons have identified the “Take That ear” caused by fans of the group having piercings higher and higher on their ear rims and now needing surgery to repair scars.

Another complaint - known as “Pixie ear” - is a hangover from an earlier facelift that has put tension on the skin and pulled down the earlobes.