I had always wanted some cowboy boots and one day, while shopping with my daughter, we ran across some that I liked at a store that carried large and small sizes.  The boot like looked liked a bona fide BOAT when the salesman took it out of the box! But I proceeded to put it on, despite the normal footed gawkers sitting around us. I stood and walked to a mirror and suddenly, a teenager sitting behind my daughter, spit out a laugh it seemed she could just hold no longer. My daughter overheard her tell her friend “Sasquatch in cowboy boots”. At that point, the second one peeks over her shoulder and joined her friend in a teenage giggle that they couldn’t stop if you hogtied them! Luckily, I hadn’t heard the comment but the giggling was a signal that someone else thought they looked as funny as I did. So I took them off and decided that maybe cowboy boots don’t really do much for size 13s. I’m over it now.

P

2.26.06

As I was growing up as a young girl in a rural community, both my height and shoe size were growing rapidly.  At age 12, I was wearing size 10 shoes.  I remember vividly that when my parents purchased a pair of size 10 shoes for me, my father said, “If your feet grow any larger, we will have to go to the factory to have shoes made for you!”  At the time, I did not realize that he was joking.  Imagine telling a 12 year old that! I cried and was miserable.  My father later apologized.

At this time, I wear size 13 and of course, I am six feet tall.  I appreciate DesignerShoes.com and what you do to make women such as myself feel normal and attractive.  Thank you!

E

2.24.06

My dad has size 13 feet.  I grew into size 10 by 8th grade.  In the 60s and  70s there were no girl shoes that fit.  I wore loafers and tennis shoes that were male compatible.

So now I have 2 lovely daughters and a son. Their dad had average feet to go with a lot of average stuff. Rachel is a lovely girl with size 12 feet, Daniel is size 15, Rebekah got her dad’s genes and is a 9. Every time Rachel was pregnant, we could judge the size of the child by the feet. You could clearly mark them and their size pushing out her womb. And she and her size 15 husband are growing solid foundation children. Thank God for answering prayers that we can get pretty and big shoes.

I just found Rachel a pair of silver sandals (12) for her 10th re-wedding event. They looked great. I opened the box and the clear Lucite heels do the tri-color treat just like her toddlers. We have decided to leave them as they are as a tribute to big feet and shining lights every step she takes. Lots of love and laughs coming from Mom and family. Her kids will think she is the bomb.

E

2.10.06

I have worn a size 11 since I was 11 years old. The stores near us only go up to size 10. Before I learned about your website, we used to search far and wide for shoes in my size, and occasionally we would find a random pair of 11’s or 12’s. When I got the size 12 shoes home, however, they were just too out of fashion to wear to school, so I discretely began using one of them as a doorstop in my bedroom, since they were so heavy. I was afraid to tell my Mom, until I noticed that she had begun using the other shoe as a doorstop in her bedroom! We had quite a laugh over that.
K

2.10.06

I have had a large foot since I was a child and it’s all because I went barefoot. At least, that is what the woman who sold shoes in our small town department store kept telling my mother. “She will end up with a big, wide foot when she grows up. She will have a size 8E. I know she will.” What did that dear woman know?

That was 1946. I wonder what she would think if she knew that I buy my shoes in an 11 W; and I still go barefoot all of the time. Gee, I wonder just what size my foot will be when I grow up?

L T

2.10.06

I was in a shoe store one day during my high school days. I was buying some shoes and as I went there often they brought everything out. Well one of the clerks said we got some furry slippers in. Would you like to try on a pair? So I slipped them on my foot and there was a little puppy in the store with his mistress. As soon as I started to walk around a bit, he came over and kept barking at my feet. You know how you felt about big feet as a teenager. The poor puppy thought it was a relative of his.
Now I understand that one needs good understanding and comfortable feet. So my size 12’s don’t bother me anymore.

P

2.10.06

In high school, foreign languages were taught using slide shows with taped narration.  In one of the lessons, a child tries on his father’s shoes.  His sister then tells him that the shoes looked like boats.  All eyes in the classroom turned and looked down at my feet.  Now, whenever my sister sees a pair of my shoes lying about, she says she knows they are mine, because they are “comme les bateaux”.
While I was in college, Baker leather shoes with their slightly rounded stacked wooden heels were all the rage.  While shoe shopping in the local mall, my friend and I spotted a pair in the window that would have gone perfectly with an outfit I planned to wear on a date that weekend.  Not realizing that this particular shoe maker\’s largest size was an 8, I politely asked the young man who came to assist me if I could see the shoe in a size 10.  He immediately replied that no, they did not come that large, but, if I wanted, I could certainly wear the boxes home.  Since I had never been sensitive about the size of my feet, I actually thought that his reply was very funny.

A few days later I ran into him in the cafeteria.  He was mortified and unable to speak.

K

2.10.06

I’ve had large feet ever since I was born. My mother tells stories of how she used to feel my feet run up and down her side when she was pregnant with me, and how she had to return the newborn sized socks when I was born because my feet were too large for them.

As the youngest of 3 girls, I had the largest feet thanks to my 6’4″ tall father. Shoe shopping was very hard as a girl because my mother and grandmother found shoes for my sisters, but none of the stores’ sizes went high enough for me. We’d go from store to store looking for shoes for me while my sisters carried their new purchases in their hands. Everyone was finished shopping, and was waiting for me to be finished, too. I remember sitting in a store crying out of embarrassment on one occasion; I heard “no” too many times that day.

Later I just resolved that it’s just how life was. There were only 2 stores that carried my size, and the shoes were for old women. So there I was, a 12-year-old girl wearing 65-year-old women shoes. One pair were black nursing-looking shoes with x’s on the top and a raised comfort sole, then I had another pair of rubber looking shoes with a 2-inch sole. My last resolve was penny loafers that looked masculine and emphasized the length and width of my feet. In school,

I was teased relentlessly to shame, and prayed for my feet to shrink. Students called my long, slender feet planks and they would stare at my feet with smirks on their faces whenever I walked passed them to class. Their jokes, comments and stares never ceased. I was widely known as the girl with the big feet. It didn’t help that I had to wear skirts since I went to private school, and my skinny legs made my feet look even longer.

I got my first corns in 11th grade because I switched to public school and vowed not to be teased anymore, so I wore shoes that were so tight that I would feel painful shocks in my toes. In adulthood, I’ve still had a hard time finding shoes. Many of them I wear are too small or too large…until I found your web site from the msn.com article published in January. I had considered opening a shoe store for women with large feet or asking designers to extend their sizes, but thank God your store has already done it. The pair I bought fit perfectly and are stylish…and were on a very good sale.

Unfortunately, having large feet isn’t like being overweight and buying plus sized clothes. You can lose inches from your body, but you can’t lose them from your feet. You can change your weight, but not your shoe size.

L

2.6.06

Years ago in San Diego, when I was married, my husband went shoe shopping with me one morning for a special event that evening.  After two frustrating hours looking for something fashionable in a size 11AA, he suggested we drive to Los Angeles to a known specialty store.

After purchasing four pairs of shoes we returned to the car, which refused to start.  After two futile hours, he called a cab for the airport.  I had never flown before and was petrified at the idea but we had left the children with the housekeeper and with our evening affair looming, he convinced me we had no choice. I vividly remember looking at all of the faces of the people who were going to perish with me as I boarded the plane, but the prospect of four beautiful and fashionable pairs of shoes sustained me until we landed.  I was no longer afraid to fly after that experience and now look forward to flying to New York for my shoe shopping experience.

A

1.27.06