I was born with feet in the 1st percentile of the population and they stayed that way even despite getting taller. Now every shoe shopping experience is awkward af.
Have you looked into shoe inserts that essentially reduce the size of the shoe interior? My friend has extremely small feet and faces a similar problem of not finding shoes that are small enough, and I think she’s had some luck with the inserts
I’m just confused by why you keep getting your feet measured. I haven’t done that since my feet stopped growing, I know my size by this point
How I imagine it:
“I’m size 3”
“No you’re not”
“Yes I am”
“You can’t be”
“BRING THE DEVICE”
Or like look at the size 3 they currently are wearing.
Yeah but maybe their toes are just jammed up all the way to the front and they don’t know how shoes work! You never know!
I only got my feet measured for a new pair of running shoes at a new running store that just opened up. You’re right - I don’t have to combat the Brannock device on a regular basis.
AFASS - Assigned Female At Shoe Store
…i shop women’s shoes when i can; they generally offer a much wider selection…
And they’re so much more comfortable, it’s ridiculous. It’s like the shoe industry decided, several decades ago, that men don’t want comfortable shoes.
Comfort or pockets
Fair. Men get pockets, but shite shoes. Women get comfort, but no pockets.
Hol up, y’all have pockets on your shoes? I’m getting neither comfort nor pockets.
Ah yes the two genders
Lmaoooooo 🤣🤣🤣💀
The Brannock has ruled. Misses section is right this way…
What’s shoe shopping like? I have a friend with size 6 or 7 feet and he says he often find cheaper shoes because he gets away with buying kids versions of sneakers. On the other hand I’ve got wide feet so my options are often limited.
Shoe shopping in a store rarely happens. I can go to Kmart or Target and find shoes in the kids section, or go online. I was only going into a proper shoe store this one time to get a new pair of running shoes.
OP is a Rob Liefeld character.
In all seriousness I hope you can find a decent specialty store that will get you comfy/stylish/both shoes.
You have different shoe sizes for men and women? WTF?
Where do you live that they don’t?
Shoe sizes are Unisex here in in Europe as well as in Asia. And in Asia they are even smarter - they simply use centimeters, while we use “Paris Points” of 2/3s of a centimeter.
In Japan everyone knows their shoe size in centimeters. Those stay the same regardless of gender or whatever other crazy unrelated topic to how big something is.
That would make it a foot measurement, not a shoe size.
It would except for the fact that shoe sizes here, from babies to adults are only sized in centimetres. If there are international sizes printed on the shoes, they have no meaning to residents in Japan. Check the tag inside your shoes; If they have international sizes printed on them, you’ll see Japan’s is in centimetres, and may have EE (or more Es) next to it to denote width. If there is nothing, then they are standard width.
Children’s clothing is also sized in centimetres. Makes things really simple.
This is probably gonna blow your mind. But most shoes are worn on feet. Crazy, uh?
It’s normal for men to have wider feet, with a wider and longer toebox compared to the length of the foot. Length is only one dimension of several. (Though a lot of people don’t think to re-lace* their shoes for arches.)
It’s unclear how much of that is upbringing. The toebox length is gendered, but toe and foot width go up wen spending a lot of time barefoot, and toe width goes down in pointed shoes that can eve n make toes ‘tuck’ and cause bunions.
A women’s 9 1/2 double-wide fits me about the same as a plain Men’s 7. Women’s dress shoes are rarely in wide, and NEVER double-wide. Though I’ve found success with Aussie brands because going barefoot is normal there and so the shoes are often wider for everyone. We’re also seeing the toebox become a more slanted natural foot shape, instead of the weird point symmetrical one.
Bodies can be complicated, and one size/shape isn’t for everyone. The way we live and dress absolutely changes the shoes we need, too.
Yes but the number doesn’t have to change. Just like in the US, they use letters to denote relative foot wdith vs. the average. No need for multiple numbering schemes.
It is more accurate, but for most people it probably makes it more work. If most [Group A] need [Item A], it gets labelled that way so they can be sectioned that way. It probably would be better, especially for more uncommon shapes, to use measurements. But most people don’t want to do that for everything, they want an easy answer so they can go home. A lot of women I know have never bothered to get their bra size professionally measured, and that’s a readily available service that saves so much literal pain.
Reminds me of mens/womens deoderant. IIRC the real difference is that one is creamier (for body hair) and the other is powdery (for shaved skin). So sometimes men might want women’s deoderant or vice versa, and the labelling CAN obfuscate that.
Just like in the US
The letters denoting widths exist, but they’re not used. Very few US shoe brands offer different widths on the same size shoe. Some offer two. A handful three, and now you’re talking about workwear, not trainers or anything else. Generally, US shoe widths are decided by whether it’s a mens or womens model.
My fellow lemming, I worked in a shoe store in the US for two years. I can tell you that yes, in fact, every shoe has an associated letter denoting width along with the number denoting length.
However, unless the width is special it may or may not be printed on the box.
I have also worked shoe retail. US household name brands makes single widths for the majority of their available shoes. If you have narrow feet try the equivalent size in the women’s model. If you have wide feet try the men’s options. The lasts are different. I’m aware you can do better than what is available in a standard retail setting. I’m generalizing.
My most recent shoe purchased was decided because the arc in the shoe perfectly marched my own. Also i do have rather wide feet and did go barefoot a lot as a kid. Funny thing im the only in group that still has arches.
I recommend re-lacing. Autocorrect changed it to ‘replace’, but changing how your shoes are laced really helps. I have a very high arch, and found that I didn’t actually need much arch support in the shoe itself, I just needed the tongue not to be pushing down on it. It means the shoes now feel tight and secure around my ankle and toe, I don’t have to go up a size to fit my arch. Much more comfortable!
Huh! That’s very interesting. I’ve never thought abou lacing having an impact on fit. I also have high arches and I’m definitely giving this a try. Thanks!
size in centimeters
Measuring like that would be even easier in the US, where the answer would always be simply “one foot”.
Just so you know: Women shoes are different in both width and length*.
Probably because men often need wider shoes.
Well, that’s why you still have mens and womens sections in the shoe shop. But it definitively makes it easier e.g. to find a shoe for a woman with wide feet, just take a mens’ sneaker in the same size.
I swear to fuck there was another lemmy user that was really tall but had like size 4 feet and there was a pretty cool AMA
Ya I remember that. They had a pic of them in business attire I think
Edit: Here is that post:
https://lemmings.world/post/19924381
Same person
Dope, they’ll go down in Lemmy history for having funny proportions
Yes, I remember this too! 😂
my sister’s foot size is 12. She has larger feet than me and I’m AMAB
AMAB
A Massive-Ass Bastard?
Assigned male at birth.
No, no I think the other guy is right.
That’s not very nice.
Can we see a pic of your feet with your legs in the shot too? This is very interesting
Unclear if on topic, or foot fetish.
Dear feet lovers: does size matter? Actually curious if you care about that.
Foot enthusiast here, For me it’s more about the shape and if they are well cared for.
Edit: It’s also about how she uses the feet ;)
Corn likea da feet
Why the hell not?
Those kickers look pretty normal!
Do they get sore all the time? That sounds like a lot of weight on not much area.
Not as much as you would think. The body is incredibly adaptable. I have pretty strong foot and calf muscles that distribute the load I guess.
Don’t bother…my gf has small feet also and we go shopping in kid’s department/shop
Same. Sometimes it’s the same shoe at a discount, other times kids shoes are lower quality.
Or if you’re into it, they can light up with each step
Same. My girlfriend also used to have massive tits. We’re talking DDD’s. She ended up getting a reduction, but it was funny because she used to have to go to Lane Bryant for tops and Kids Foot Locker for shoes.
As a woman, I think it’s stupid that shoes are gendered in the first place. My shoe size is in the realm that exists for both men’s and women’s shoes. So in shoe stores I can grab the same sneakers from the women’s and the men’s section. Just sort the damn shoes by size and let people pick the ones they like ffs.
The first few decades of my life I assumed that there’d been all sorts of important orthopaedic/podiatry research done into the difference between men and women’s feet, gaits etc that meant wearing sports shoes sold as “women’s” would in some way cause my feet long term harm. Nope, it was bullshit marketing all along.
I wouldn’t be surprised if on average women’s feet were narrower than men’s, but even if that’s the case, just make narrow and wide versions of shoes and let people pick the ones that fit their feet. Surely there are men with narrow feet and women with wide feet. It just makes no sense.
I have had to wear shoes 1 (or .5 depending upon the model) number larger due to wide fronts.
Barefoot shoes! Started wearing them 2 years ago and will never go back. I hadn’t even realized how much regular shoes crammed my toes together until I started wearing actually foot-shaped shoes. And my feet are narrow.
I’ve heard of them quite a bit.
Might try if I get the chance.
I recently learned that there’s a size rating for width. It goes from A to E, and says something about the length/width ratio of the shoe. Made my previous shoes a lot easier to buy (I also struggle to find wide enough shoes).
Goes further than that, my feet are technically 11EEEEEE but I usually have to get a 12EE since basically no one in the world makes 6E if not custom made.
Well, guess I need to look for my width rating.
Not that it matters, because the shop ppl won’t understand.
And even if they do, it’s useless if they don’t have what I need.
Not just shoes, all clothes. We can come up with better terms, like tapered or straight line. Whatever would be most descriptive. It’s ridiculous.
To be fair, I don’t think it’s “ridiculous” to sort e.g. jeans into the broad categories of “typically wider or slipper hips/thighs compared to length” or t-shirts into “typically broader back vs. typically larger chest”.
The mens/women’s categories are probably the coarsest categories that makes sense, since the average man’s and women’s body are so different in so many ways.
The point is that you described it exactly as it could be described without using gendered terms.
Get me a small man’s foot-suit, please.
I get the reference!
Be careful what you wish for. Small feet on a man mean you’ll be sentenced to a life of small dick jokes. Which is certainly not the worst thing in the world but it isn’t great.
My message was a tenuous reference to Flight of the Conchords (New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-comedy duo). So it’s understandable that it was misunderstood, however, I did appreciate your thoughtful response.
Here’s the song if you need a laugh: https://youtu.be/yjfSZu246zE
So I’m not sure if you know this, but in the US the big kids sizes and the adult men’s sizes are the same. For example, a men’s 5 is the same as a big kid’s 5.
Next time you need to use a Brannock device and you’re sized out, have them get the one for the kids.
