The Hindu Business Line : Well heeled

At first blush Philip Vasyli could easily pass off as a retired Aussie cricketer. Tall and burly, barrel-chested like a Mathew Hayden, he bounds into the room with restless energy, ready for yet another meeting to evangelise his product. Vasyli is a podiatrist; and before one thinks it has something to do with the gizmo one affixes to one’s ear, he qualifies himself as a foot doctor. A podiatrist, also known as a chiropodist, Vasyli is not only the successful invento r of a patented foot product sold worldwide, the Orthaheel, he’s also treated thousands of patients for some very common problems ranging from heel, knee and back pain to plain tired, aching legs!

Vasyli’s company, which makes the over-the-counter orthotics brand Orthaheel, was bought over by SSL International plc last year. SSL, the parent company of Indian affiliate SSL-TTK, also owns the well-known footcare brand Scholl and the takeover of Vasyli’s brand was deemed a strategic fit. Recently in Chennai at the invitation of SSL-TTK at the launch of Orthaheel, footcare products that realign feet to improve body posture, in the Indian market, Vasyli explained to the media with the aid of a video and a live model how feet tend to ‘de-align’ themselves and cause chronic complaints.

The podiatrist goes back to prehistoric human to explain our present-day problems. As he says: “The basic premise on which Orthaheel products were developed is that while the human foot was originally designed to travel on soft natural surfaces such as earth and sand, we now spend every day walking and standing on unnatural hard, flat surfaces.” These hard surfaces, he explains, force our heels to roll over to gain ground contact and our arches to flatten. Rolling over of the foot, or excess pronation, as he describes it, is known to affect a large number of people. Excess pronation, he warns, may lead to heel pain, pain under the ball of the foot, corns, calluses and bunions. “Just like the tyres on a car, poor alignment of the feet can cause wear and tear of other parts of the body. Excess pronation can disrupt normal knee function and hip alignment and increases forces on the muscles in the lower back and this can lead to a wide range of common complaints from knee pain to back pain,” he elaborates.

This may seem blindingly simple and obvious, only Vasyli set out to do something about it with his years of podiatric experience where he claims to have treated over 50,000 people in his 16 years of medical practice, including top sports people and athletes. Vasyli’s Orthaheel, which he designed in 1991, are heat-moulded prefabricated orthotics and can be easily slipped into most closed footwear as an insole.

Using a lady from the audience, Vasyli explains how the specially designed insoles work to realign the feet, reducing strain on ligaments, reduces internal rotation of the legs and decreases the traction of calf muscles, taking away the pain which emanates from either heel, knee or back. While there are different types of insoles available depending on the problem, Vasyli said there is even one for women who have aching feet from wearing high heels. “I personally wouldn’t want them to stop wearing heels, so we developed something for them as well,” he remarks with a big grin.

TTK-SSL does not intend to do much hardselling for this niche product in the Indian market but right now is in the process of placing it in large format lifestyle stores in the footwear section, and in wellness and footwear stores and select chemists, says Sampath Kumar, General Manager, TTK-SSL. Ortaheel, available in three variants, is priced between Rs 545 and Rs 795.

You ask Vasyli how he happened to sell out to Scholl and why not to one of the big footwear brands, a Nike or a Reebok. The first part is easy with Scholl being the world’s top footcare specialist, the Orthaheel would add to its repertoire. And, most footwear brands, he says, don’t look at the foot as he does; they merely look at providing shock absorption for the feet and not realign them the way his product does. At the end of it all, footcare didn’t seem mundane any more.

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