h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've taken a size 12 shoe all my adult life, but recently, I've noticed that my toes touch the end of size 13. And I've just placed an order for a pair of size 14(!) Squash shoes.

Do your feet have another spurt of growth around the age of 40, or have they been messing about with shoe sizes without telling us?

There might be something to that. I've worn a 10 since I was seventeen, but then a few months ago I went shopping for shoes, and I ended up in a pair of 11's. I am still at an age where my feet might possibly have grown (it's an outside chance, though, since I just turned 26), but then why do my old shoes still fit as comfortably as ever? Is there some national plot at work here, too subtle to be quickly understood?

I've always worn a 6 or 6-1/2 (UK sizes, I don't know what that is in US - it's 39 in European). Over the last few years I've had to buy a 7 sometimes, and some of my old size 6s (which were a comfortable fit) have got too snug for comfort. This is a width problem rather than a length problem, though. I know that your feet spread a bit as you get older, but I wouldn't have thought I was old enough for that to be a problem yet. Maybe I should start thinking of myself as middle-aged. S@d it, no I won't! Mentally I'm still in my 20s - old enough to be taken seriously, but young enough to have fun!

DP is that a size 13UK or 13US. A 13US will be about a size 12UK.
I take size 13 UK and they're hard enough to get hold of in shoe shops, so I hope that I don't end up having to get bigger shoes.

My shoes are nearly two sizes larger than they were in my twenties. This is partly accounted for by middle-aged avoirdupois and partly by twenty years of slopping around in sandals; the width has gone from C toEE. It sounds as though gents' shoe manufacturers are getting themselves tangled up with American sizes

Looking in the recently bought trainers, it says US - 14, UK - 13, EUR - 48.5, CM 39 (Where is CM?)

A useful site for big sports shoes is http://www.fdsports.co.uk

Also, try http://www.sportsshoes.co.uk (note the double 's' in the middle). There's a link on their home page for 'Big Foot'.

The place where I get my ordinary shoes has the following web site
http://www.jonesbootmaker.com
but a quick search of their web site reveals that they don't do size 13. I haven't bought any shoes for at least 6 or 7 years. Perhaps I should give them a visit and see if I can still get into a size 12

Cheers for those links DP. I normaly get shoes from one particular shop which advertises on posters in the window "We stock up to size 15". The problem with this shop is that it's in Bristol and I'm in London

Enough of this boasting! I think it is just urban legend, what your shoe size relates to!
Anyway, as to changing shoe sizes, I have been 8 (UK) for years and I still was at Christmas when I bought my last pair, so I certainly have not noticed anything. *Munchkin shuffles off, muttering something about size not being important*

It's no urban legend Munchkin, large feet mean big shoes

Shoe size is important, well in making sure they fit properly. How would you like to be told, sorry sir we don't do your size almost every time you try and buy something as fundamental as a pair of shoes. It really pisses me off.

*slow down, count to ten, breathe deeply, calm down, stop before the rant gets out *

Actually Munchkin, there was a report issues a few years back (prob. by some very bored and dirty-minded anatomists) about the co-relation of shoe size to umm... you-know-what, and they found it wasn't such a myth after all.
Certainly made the company outing to the bowling alley a bit more interesting!

When I was about 20, shoe shopping consisted of:

1. Walk into shop

2. Ask, 'Have you got anything in size 12?' (Eeee, those were the days, when I had size 12 feet)

3. Go to the next shop.

What amazes me is that, although I am tall (6' 4"), I am by no means freakishly so. Where do all those who are taller than me go?? They all seem to have shoes.

In a slack period in the office, I found the following sites for proper shoes size 12 and above:

http://www.tall-small.com (reasonably priced, too), and

http://walktall.couk.com (yes that URL is correct)

Bugger!

No, that URL is NOT correct!

It should be http://www.walktall.couk.com (the couk bit is right, honest)

Still it's not the same as going to a shop and trying something on and deciding if it's right, but it's a good thing though that they're out there.

There must be something going on at Planet Shoe, I've just bought a pair that fit & are comfortable. Something that's not happened since I was in Clarks Startrite!!!!

It is only a myth, SWH takes a UK size 8 but I'm smiling!!!!!!

Well I had a look at the walktall and wasn't impressed. The catalogue was just small pictures of the catalogue pages which you couldn't see too much, the order the catalogue form doesn't work (error from their ISP about using formmail scripts).
Sorry but getting online doesn't mean that it should be done badly, I wonder if they checked any of this out or not or just left it up to some internet wizz they employed because they had to have a website.

(Sorry for the rant, but it does make me wonder when they've obviously gone to a lot of time and trouble to make a nice catalogue and are spending money in getting a web presence).

My mother has a theory that as you grow older, you shrink in size (height-wise), and it goes to your feet.

Thus far, nobody has been able to prove her theory wrong.

I had wondered the same thing myself. I was hoping that the answer was not that my feet were growing but that they have been diddling around with the shoe sizes. In my 20s, I wore a size 7(USA), but as soon as I turned 40 (gulp) these puppies are into a size 8 1/2. Whats with that? And as for the shrinking thing, am I to assume that by age 50 I will be 4 foot 10 inches tall with size 10 feet? OH HOW ATTRACTIVE! I should just give up, stop shaving the legs, wear birkenstocks and eat more granola. (Hey, doesn't sound like a bad life!)

Noooooooo I can't get any shorter with big feet, I'll look like a poxing Hobbit!!!



Hmmm, cheap on shoes though

Are they hairy feet then

I didn't realise this was a world-wide thing. My theory was that they didn't make proper UK sizes any more, but just made Continental sizes and the conversion wasn't exact.

I suppose the only thing for us to do is to get anoraky and measure our feet regularly with a ruler to see if they actually do change size. On second thoughts, I'll just keep trying shoes on.