In foot-binding culture, women’s feet were crippled during childhood to make them tiny and pointed, two physical distortions that epitomised beauty in medieval China.

The painful beauty practice of binding girls’ feet in China may seem like a tradition long gone – after all, it’s been more than a century since the Chinese government banned it. But a ...

In 1911, the Chinese government banned foot-binding, a brutal practice of body modification inflicted on young girls since the 10th century. The few remaining women, who had their feet bound as ...

It was an excruciatingly painful practice that maimed the feet of millions of Chinese girls and women for centuries: foot-binding. Tiny “golden lotus” feet – achieved through breaking girls ...

In Liuyi, even after the practice was banned, Fu says, she and others were hesitant to stop tightly binding their feet and hid them from officials, worried that the ban would be temporary.

During the late 1950s, communist China expressed its distaste for the practice and fewer and fewer women had their feet bound. The process of binding would begin between the ages of four and nine.

The act of foot binding, which was carried out in China from the 10th century, was meant to show a woman would make a good wife because she was uncomplaining.

British photographer Jo Farrell spent 10 years documenting the lives of 50 women whose feet were once bound. There was a time when young girls had to apply tight binding to find a suitable partner.

Photographer Jo Farrell is on a quest to capture the last living Chinese women to have survived Lotus Feet foot binding.

Foot binding, or ‘lotus feet’, was once considered the height of female sexual attraction (Picture: Alamy) Foot binding, or ‘lotus feet’, stands as a symbol of a bygone China.

The surprising truth about Chinese women who bind their feet Foot binding has been illegal in China for a century. But a number of older women, who, continued the traditional custom in secret, are ...

The practice of binding the feet of Chinese girls is one of the first things that foreigners learn about China.