In 1986 I had a chance to travel to a very hot climate, where I would need comfortable sandals to fit my VERY WIDE and large feet.  The cobbler’s shop in the mall had very nice custom sandals, simple and sturdy – perfect, I thought, since it’s so hard for me to find any shoes, much less sandals that will be comfortable in heat.  They made an outline of my feet and promised the sandals in 10 days.

Time went by, and went by some more, so finally I called and asked what was going on.  They said, “Oh – we didn’t make them. We thought there must be some mistake in the tracing. It seems impossibly wide. Can you please come down to the shop?”  So I did, and lo and behold, my triangular foot fit their triangular tracing perfectly.  They were embarrassed (so was I) and they hustled to make the sandals before I had to leave town.  Those were wonderful and comfortable sandals.  I ended up giving them away to a woman who had big feet like mine who had no access to big, wide shoes down in that country.  It was a gift of “solidarity of the big-feet women.”

A

1.27.06

I was shopping for shoes at a large size shoe store with a male friend who had been working with a sales clerk for some time trying to find size 16 shoes that fit in something other than a basketball shoe.

When the sales woman had run out of shoes in his size she turned to me optimistically and asked if she could help me.  I showed her several styles I was interested in and then asked for size 11.5 W. She looked at me and grimaced, saying good naturedly (but seriously) ” I hope you two don’t have children”

S

1.9.06

It was just before Christmas when my friends and I were shopping. At that time I was 16 and I wore a size 9* (that’s a male size in Africa). We got into different shops buying clothes and make-up mostly—well it was Christmas.

When it was time for buying shoes I excused myself from the activity but my friends persuaded me to come along. They thought I was lying when I said there are no female shoes of my shoe size. So I tagged along unwillingly, I knew what was going to happen because I had been through it many times before. We got into a shoe store, they told the sales man that they wanted shoes of my size. He asked me what size I wore and I told him 9. He kept quiet for a while and then he said, they had no shoes of that size and he went on to say that he was sure no shop had such a large shoe size for women. My friends gave him a good telling off and we all left. Now they understand.

C

1.8.06

*note:  men’s size 9 is roughly equivalent to women’s size 10.5 – 11.

When I was in my early twenties, I had to order my shoes because very few stores carried a dress shoe in a women’s size 11W.  I had ordered myself a new pair of black pumps and was anticipating their delivery any day.  One night I hurried home from work to my parents’ house and when I walked through the back door I saw my Dad sitting at the kitchen table his blue eyes twinkling and sporting his beautiful smile.  I was wondering what was amusing him when I looked down and saw he was sitting with his legs crossed swinging his foot with my new shoes on!  Mom, dad and I had a wonderful laugh together over this and I remember it often when I think of them both.

K

1.7.06

Since early childhood I’ve had a ‘thing’ for shoes.  I remember taking new shoes to bed with me when I was three!  I also remember just about every pair of shoes I wore growing up.  I was destined to be a shoe maven…I thought.

As years wore on, I found myself in big trouble.  At ten years old, I was offered my first shoebox to wear because the store didn’t carry any size 7’s in narrow and that were appropriate for a child.  The shoe salesman told my parents I had a twenty-dollar foot, which were big bucks in the 50’s.  I remember crying my way from store to store.

As a woman in my twenties, I once wore my bedroom slippers for nine months while waiting for the shoes I had to order.  By then I wore a size 13 AAAA.  So you can imagine my surprise and joy when a guy I was dating actually bought a pair of heels for me for Christmas!  They weren’t black and they were IN STYLE!  I knew how much work he had to go through to find them.  Needless to say, HE’S THE MAN I MARRIED!

T

12.23.05

I have to say that this shoe story resonates with me – the size 11 men’s bowling shoes.

I am now 62 years young, and wear a 10.5B shoe but way back in my youth, I was first in my grade school class to weigh more than 100 pounds, wore a size 9 shoe then, and also had the bowling alley experience of having to rent a male shoe.  Making things worse, the size numbers were scrawled in large red letters on the back of the shoes.  Same problem with roller-skates at the local rink; same problem with ski boots and with running shoes in the 1970s.  I had to buy men’s shoes for length, and then wear thick socks to make up for the width and depth difference.

Fortunately my ego remained intact  – a big girl needs big feet.   I never shopped for shoes in the sense that others did.  I would just ask the clerk: “What do you have in a 10.5B?”  Answer: “Clodhoppers”.  Oddly, I did not discover your web site until about 2 months ago. What a difference you would have made in my life earlier.  I too could have owned “cute shoes”!  Who knows what higher peaks of success might have been achieved had www.designershoes.com existed in my career-building heyday.  Or which await me now that I do!

C E

12.16.05

I was 16 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, as skinny as Olive Oil (the cartoon character in love with Popeye), and wore size 12 narrow shoes. I had a date with a wonderful boy a few years older than me, and short. We went bowling. Although I didn’t bowl well, I enjoyed the game.

We rented shoes. He ordered size nine for himself. He ordered size 12 for me. Of course, the bowling alley didn’t carry a size for women larger than 10. After some confusion on the part of the clerk, my date finally was able to order a man’s size 11 for me. We bowled. I bowled badly, and every time I threw a “gutter ball”, he would laugh and joke that my shoes were too big.

Funny. We did not have a second date.

R

12.7.06