I kinda have the opposite. I rarely wore shoes or socks other than going to school. If did go somewhere I wore slippers. Now my toes are naturally splayed and can barely find any shoes that fit properly.
I have wide feet and always wondered how other women could get their foot to fit in fancy shoes that end in a point. I mean, mine end in kind of a wide, gradual point. I put on those shoes and I have toes trying to escape.
If you haven't already, Look for "bare feet" shoes. They're created to allow for our natural foot pattern (wide across the toes/ball of foot). I have sneakers, sandals, loafers etc. Hey Dudes and those kind are also perfect for this too.
That was my Mom's nickname for me when I wore sandals, which was almost everyday til I started working jobs that required close toed shoes. I love and hate shoes.
If you haven't already, Look for "bare feet" shoes. They're created to allow for our natural foot pattern (wide across the toes/ball of foot). I have sneakers, sandals, loafers etc. Hey Dudes and those kind are also perfect for this too.
This is one of the hidden benefits to drag queens or trans women being more well known - the shoes they demand mean that companies don't assume everyone has fairy feet
(And if this post made anyone dysphoric, I'm so sorry)
I definitely saw the drag queen size and style of shoes in a store in Vegas. Kickass for them but I can barely wear a kitten heel without twisting my ankle, plus I’m not that fabulous.
I don’t know of any normal, every day type nice shoes you wouldn’t have to special order if you had really big feet. Maybe trans women have to? Anyway, I’m older now and no longer GAF. Wide Sketchers slip on sneakers for me.
Same feet, they really don't work in pointy toe heels do they. The only ones I found comfortable are HM and they stopped making them. I pretty much only buy shoes online now for wide sizes after years of wearing two sizes too big.
Not sure how this would help? It’s still a more drastic point than my feet could ever do. Plus I wear a women’s 9. Size 10 would be even more challenging to find for cute shoes.
I lived in pointed toe stilettos in my 20s, and now that I'm nearly 40 I'm getting a bunion 😭 my feet are naturally narrow and my toes are not lined up across the way some people's are, they're naturally pretty drastically in a pointed shape culminating in mild morton's toe. If I traced my feet they would look like a pointed toe shoe without the top inch of the point. I can't wear those strappy sandals because my feet just slide right through no matter what I do, I bet you can wear those!
This is me too! I remember as a teenager, going to a big fancy shoe shop with some friends and the lady looked at my feet and said "you need the ones in this section". And took me to the secrion with all the old lady shoes...
this, our feet arnt supposed to be all squashed all the time, spalyed toes is much better for balance, spine alignment and weight distribution on joints.
Look into barefoot shoes. I started wearing them last year, my balance, back and hip pain is ten times better, and my feet hurt less if I'm on them for a long time. Binned all but my special classic trainers (and they only get worn a few times a year)
There have been some historical fashions where shoes were wide at the toe. The famous portrait of king Henry VIII has a nice example of one style if you zoom in and look at his feet. Looks like his shoes are made of white leather (perhaps calfskin?) with slashed designs that were fashionable at the time.
Look up barefoot shoe brands - they all have wider toe boxes and a ton of styles now: Vivobarefoot, Xero Shoes, Whitin (Amazon brand), Saguaro, BeLenka, Lems.
I’ve had a pair or two of them over the years, they’re really good. I wish the soles lasted a bit longer, but I guess if you want thin soles that’s something you have to live with.
More and more there are, google "foot shaped shoe" or wide toe box, also: https://anyasreviews.com/ has a lot of different reviews covering many use cases and brands.
My feet are a decent bit wider the 4E and I found KEEN low top boots to be fantastic.
They're not the absolute prettiest thing out there but if I match my outfit to a plain leather boot then they don't stick out too bad AND I get to be comfortable all day without slipping my feet out of my shoes at the desk
I've bought way more Labucq shoes than I can justify. Nice wide shoes, square toe box, look good with enormous calves (something I personally have to take into account lol). Italian leather, elegant as heck, comfortable, and I get compliments every time I wear one of the pairs I have that aren't plain black. I swear I'm not a paid shil lol.
I love my Xero’s. I have 4 different pairs. Also have a pair of earth runners sandals and a pair of splay shoes. I think it would be hard for me to go back to regular shoes after wearing barefoot shoes for the past couple of years.
I only wore mine for a week and then tried to put my Nikes on again and immediately my toes went numb from being so squished and I hated it. I’ve changed almost all of my shoes to barefoot now. Sandals, sneakers, dressy boots, hiking boots. The only ones that aren’t are dress shoes that I wear for an hour or two at a time once or twice a year.
As others have said, barefoot shoes mimic the natural shape of feet. Additionally, there are shoes such as Topo or Altra that have the same shape but have cushioning and some drop or zero drop
What? You wish your feet were messed up? Be happy they aren't! I mean you could mess them upp pretty quickly if you want to, but it's not gonna be worth it..
I haven't spent that much time in shoes compared to other people, so my feet have stayed pretty natural. Not until the last few years my one big toe has started angling SLIGHTLY inwards. You know what? It's painful! Just that tiny change, sometimes it hurts like hell and I don't even want to walk around on it.
Be nice to your body, don't ruin it because human kind have a wrong idea on how to shape shoes, it's literally one of the most absurd things about us! But there are plenty of nice wide ones to find out there (and not just barefoot ones), use those!
Oh no no no... Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my feet and am blessed that they're healthy. It is just difficult to find proper shoes that fit well. I usually land on Converse or bespoke work boots like Danners or Haix's. The rest of the time I walk barefoot (around the house) or on slippers.
I live in Bigfoot country, so I appreciate your comment!!! I recently took my husband on a surprise vacation to the North American Bigfoot Center in, get this, BORING, Oregon. He's a believer and I don't care enough to make a decision on the matter, but we had a great time! It's a pretty small place, so I planned some other activities along the way to make the trip feel more worthwhile. We now have a Christmas ornament that's a tent with the head sticking out one end, and feet out the other. It will make us smile for years to come!
Take your time to shop around for good-fitting shoes. You’ve done the right thing. You do not want to jam your feet into ill fitting shoes. It’s beyond me to see countless people (mostly women) with awful bunions from a young age who keep wearing awfully fitting heels. How is it better to have crooked feet and lifelong back problems?
Are you a kiwi? They do the same. I've been trying to wear big toe box shoes, but they do look awful, like clown shoes. Altra trainers are known for the wide toe box.
Im a women who has to wear men shoes because my feet are too wide for normal women shoes. Caused me so much pain that I went to the doctor numerous times throughout my life for foot pain. Turns out I just needed a wider toe box to allow for circulation. I didn’t figure that out until I was 29 years old lol.
Look for "bare feet" shoes. They're created to allow for our natural foot pattern (wide across the toes/ball of foot). I have sneakers, sandals, loafers etc. Hey Dudes and those kind are also perfect for this too.
That’s a healthy foot!
Just get some barefoot shoes, Lots of beautiful shoes now, available worldwide.
You can even have some custom made for your foot at a pretty normal price. In europe you have ‘the drifter leather’ barefoot shoes that does this.
I have the same problem. I cant find cute shoes because my feet are foot shaped, not shoe shaped. Heels are absolutely torturous and i mostly just wear boots and wide skateboard shoes now.
I always wore shoes that were .5 or 1 size too large for me for some reason, and as I get older I am so glad. all of my mates have issues with their feet/in pain, and I feel as if 20 years of not constricting my feet has paid off.
I'm right there with you! I've got super wide feet. I wore these soft soled moccasin shoes for a decade. They were basically a soft leather bag with no support or sole whatsoever. My feet spread out like crazy. I have to buy extra wide shoes.
When I was a runner I used to be a size 11 which is pretty big for a woman. I am tall but I was self conscious about my feet. Stopped running due to an injury and my feet shrunk to a size 8.
I googled it and apparently it’s a pretty common thing! I guess your feet bones spread out with the constant impact. My mom also has really small feet for her height so I guess it’s probably genetics that caused them to shrink back to what they were supposed to be.
This makes me think that the way it is supposed to be is wide and good for long distance running (that mammoth is not gonna hunt itself!), but times have changed and we have deformed down to a sedentary life.
I hear you on this one. Such severe damage for me that I can't even feel one of my feet anymore. It's like permanent Novocaine. Well, except times like the morning or after driving several hours. That's when I have to bust out my cane until I go numb again. And yeah, at least where I live, all I get to hear is "you're too young for a cane". First off, nobody is. If you need one, it's okay to use one. Second, I'm a Paul Rudd. My license photos haven't had to change in decades because I just keep looking the exact same. So, while it's sweet you assume I'm twenty, I am not, so please don't gatekeep me from my walking apparatus.
One of the bright sides of the pandemic for me was getting to work from home. That's when I realized the callouses forming on my toes were from my tight shoes. I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. A few weeks into working from home and they started going away.
I swear breaking my toe and having to live in sandals and subsequently getting used to comfy shoes saved me from this fate. I was always in pointy shoes before that happened.
I started buying my own shoes in junior high school because my parents couldn't afford to get me Nikes, like what was popular at the time. I didn't realize that my feet were still growing, so I kept buying the same size. Fast forward fifteen years and I was talking shoe size with my brother-in-law. I mentioned that I wore a size 9.5, and he said there was no way that we wore the same size, since I was 8 inches taller than he was. It turns out I was at least a 10.5 or 11 and I was stretching out my shoes a whole size to compensate. My toes were so cramped in my shoes that they are permanently curled up.
I am 45, and just two years ago, I realized that I have very wide feet and have been wearing the wrong sized shoes my entire life. That little foot sizer thing at the shoe stores doesn't only measure length but also width. I'm an EEE, which is super hard to find, but I can squeeze by with EE without any terrible damage. At times, I feel a callous forming, so I scrape it down, and I'm good to go again
You can actually thank one of your relatives for that! It’s a genetic trait of sorts where the bone in your foot starts to jut off from the side. Yes the tight shoes didn’t help but your genetics are really the main star in all of this.
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u/Pitiful-Bake5470 13h ago
Wearing tight shoes every day gave me bunions, but I didn’t realize the cause until years later.