An aspiring model who was told she was too short for the catwalk spent has thousands of pounds having her legs surgically lengthened.
From the age of 14, Alexandra Transer from the city of Volgograd, in south-western Russia, wanted to be a model.
But being just 5.4ft (165cm) she was nowhere near the 6ft (183cm) needed.
So she decided to work and save up money to have radical surgery to make her legs longer.
Alexandra Transer, TRAVESTIS LISBOA from Russia, paid £6,000 for leg extension surgery because her 5'4" frame meant she was too short to be a model. Her legs grew by 6cm (2.4 inches) in nine months. She is pictured before (left) and after (right) the procedure
Ms Transer had the operation - which involved attaching cages to both her legs, with screws turned daily to stretch them (pictured) - in order to fulfil her teenage dream of being a model
Ms Transer, now 30, was turned down by a modelling agency when she was 17.
She began researching procedures to stretch her legs at that point, working to save up the money for the operation
She said: 'I had tried to get into modelling school when I was 17.
'But I was told by the director that because I had stopped growing - and the only way I would ever be the right height was if I grew leg extensions.
'So that's exactly what I decided to do.
'At first my parents were really against it.
My mum is only 5.2ft (158cm) and my dad 5.5ft (168cm) so we are a family of shorties.
'But I had read about something called the Ilizarov apparatus which lengthens bones and that the Soviet high jump champion Valery Brumel had had this done in 1968.
'So I decided to work and save up money to have the operation done.
WHAT IS THE ILLIZAROV APPARATUS METHOD OF LEG LENGTHENING? The Illizarov apparatus method describes a procedure used to lengthen or reshape limb bones.
It is named after the orthopedic surgeon Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov from the Soviet Union, who pioneered the technique.
As part of the procedure, the bone is surgically fractured.
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