American retail, you are not stocking enough Women's shoes in Wide!

Any other women have this problem? So many times I find a shoe I like...but the store doesn't have it in a Wide! In fact, they have very few wides.

I wonder if it's a "classism" thing--middle and upper class women aren't 'sposed to have wide feet?

Retailers, women don't all have these thin little Cinderella feet. Get us some Wides in stock. I can't wear a "B" so don't ask.

Finding affordable veg shoes in a 9 1/2 wide is a real bitch. I've given up on cute.

I can't wear sandals that don't have an ankle strap because they won't stay on. (the only flip flops I own are for the shower)

please don't hate me.

I wear a 6 1/2

My foot grew and went from a narrow to a wide when I was pregnant. I had to get rid of all my shoes (and there were many many many shoes) and I am slowly replacing them.

I find sometimes if I go up one size I can get away with it no being a wide.

Good luck!

I should get fixed, if I have more kids I may wind up with clown feet. Who am I kidding, I already have clown feet.

Clown feet...never.

These days women's shoe sizes are growing faster than the national debt.

I used to have "canoes" now I have "pontoons"

You are not even in the realm of clown feet.

I should stop while I'm ahead. I shudder to think what sort of flaming hoops one would have to go through to get veg shoes in sizes even larger than mine.

If I decide to have a child, that is. If my feet get any wider they'll be wider than they are long! They'll look like elephant feet!

there wouldn't need to be a "wide" option.

Just who are they designing these shoes for? I know of no women who have feet shaped like that.

there still needs to be wide options. Believe me. I practically have Fred Flinstone feet and very, very few standard shoes fit me.

I swear those pointy toe shoes were designed by podiatrists who need extra money. Seriously though, I've heard more than one podiatrist say that pointy shoes and flip flops will be financing a very cushy retirement for them.

The broad part of my feet, just before the toes, is much wider than average. Regular width shoes (even sneakers and square toed dress shoes) pinch and rub like crazy.

I wear size 9.5N to 10N. My feet are very skinny and bony. My big toe is longer than the other toes. My toes fit right into the pointy shoes. Unfortunately, the pointy toe shoes are really long and make big feet look even bigger. I'm fairly tall and have long legs which balances out my long, skinny feet..

No thanks. I'll just stick with my Birkies. :thumbsup:

They have a million styles and carry tons of wide widths (and narrow widths for that matter). I know I sound like an ad but that website changed my life. I'm not kidding. I would go to store after store and never find anything. This past summer was the first time since I was a kid that I actually had sandals to wear. Normally I can't find anything decent in 10.5 extra wide. Whenever I did find anything it was the ugliest, nastiest old lady style. This summer I had the cutest pair of red sandals that were so comfortable and sassy, I constantly had people asking me where I got them.

At first I thought it would be weird buying shoes online but then I realized it sure beats going to 20 shoe stores and not finding anything anyway. Plus there's free shipping, no tax and, BEST OF ALL, free return shipping if the shoes don't work out. So you really have nothing to lose if the shoes don't fit or aren't what you thought they were. The customer service is excellent, as well. Almost every time I order they upgrade me to overnight shipping for free. And when I've had to return shoes they made it so easy.

Okay, I'll shut up now. :)

She wears size 5 1/2-6, but the ball of her foot is slightly wider than most of the women's shoes in that size.

We did manage to find these cute little flats though...

My husband wears an 11N and has to search high and low for shoes.

My feet are an average width since having kids, but used to have a devil of a time finding narrows myself.

Okay, I really will shut up about that now. :)

I can wear medium now, though they're sometimes still too wide. But, I had very narrow feet before kids and had a heck of a time finding shoes that didn't flop off my feet. I have a low instep, also, which made the problem worse. But, shoe shopping is much easier, now.

What? You think this is a one-way only street? :shrug:

Until, well I won't mention my favorite website again. I promised I wouldn't. :)

I even called QVC on their Birkenstocks sale and said "I need a 41, please." They unfortunately had to look it up to see if it matched their "american resizing." When they arrived, sure enough, on the sandal itself it said "41."

I've found some wonderful shoes from Germany, too. Check the small shoestores in town. Sometimes they surprise you.

I had narrow feet until having kids and can tell you it's nearly impossible finding narrow shoes when you are on a budget. In my starving student days, Payless was what I could afford. It seems like 1/3 of their shoes are wides, and they stock NO narrows. None. I spent years smooshing my feet into a 1/2 size too small or wearing more than one pair of socks.

Even today, I just can't afford shoes from the nicer stores that actually stock narrows. Thank goodness, my feet are wider since having kids and can wear a regular width.

Payless Shoes. I don't get why it's so difficult to have some on hand at other stores, but apparently it is.

And off topic, but the Cinderella part made me laugh because:
My gramma was this teeny tiny lady with teeny tiny feet,(like size 3-4), and she couldn't find shoes anywhere either. She had to order them from Boston from....wait for it....

the Cinderella Shoe Company.

(See, it's real.)
http://www.cinderellaofboston.com/

Not kidding you, I read it somewhere.

Just because my feet are size 11 doesn't mean I want to wear something that looks like old granny shoes. Feet are getting bigger - please accomadate us bigfoot women with more size 11 stuff

THank you!

Please...Size 12 is not that unusual anymore.

I can remember my mom always buying mens shoes because she couldn't find anthing in her size. It's easier than it used to be, but I think they sell out of them so fast because they don't stock enough.

My mom can't find shoes to fit her narrow and very very small feet. She wears a 4 and my grandma wears a 3. They have to special order shoes or buy kiddie shoes. Our feet are just made so differently!! :shrug:

When I find a pair of shoes that I like, they always seem to be in wide, which I do not wear.

Even then, there's only one damn pair. I can sometimes wear a 10 but I can never wear a 9. :cry:
Try shopping for 9 1/2 narrow sometime.

I wear my expensive riding boots most of the time. English riding boots come in my size, thank goodness.

The vast majority of shoe manufacturers don't even go above size 10. If they do, they carry 11 and 12 but not half sizes. Even fewer carry wide shoes, few still carry WW.

You have my sympathy. Have you tried the custom made shoes? :(

;) Well, if I were rich I would totally splurge on custom made shoes. Until then, Zappos.com is my favorite website. Luckily, I'm not super girly so I can wear some men's shoes. Especially because lately it seems like a lot of men's shoes are sorta girly. The time I run into real trouble is trying to find dress shoes. Thank Maude I work in a casual office.

I worked at a shoe store once that carried a lot of shoes in narrow width and even they rarely carried 9 1/2N. A lot of brands skip that. Same thing with 10 1/2 in any width. If you're between a 10 and an 11, it's almost impossible to find a good fit.

Getting a good fitting pair of shoes is difficult, because it isn't like clothes. You can get away with wearing a shirt that isn't cut exactly for you, but if a shoe is even just a little bit off they can be unwearable. You can sometimes get them stretched or put inserts in them, but it isn't quite the same.

There are no cheap shoes in our size. :( I take really good care of my shoes. I like ones with leather soles because they can be re-soled. I have no idea what 10.5N people do. I suppose they wear ill-fitting shoes.
:(

retailers underserve the public. The average American woman is a dress/pants size 12 or 14. Go through the racks in any department store and try to find those sizes - (and larger because frequently the 12's and 14's are cut small). You end up wading through a sea of 2's and 4's that would fit the average supermodel, but not the average mall shopper. Also, try to find clothing not made out of some clingy fabric that makes women look like they've been stuffed into a sausage casing. It's positively disgusting how the fashion industry ignores the needs of the public.

Jeans are another area - there are some really cute embroidered flares out nowadays but EVERY FREAKIN pair is "low rise" "ultra low rise" or ultra ultra ultra (look at my sequinned thong!) low rise". If you want to buy jeans that you can actually bend over in without revealing your ass cleavage to the world, you have the option of ugly, unflattering tapered-leg jeans. After going to several stores, I did manage to find a few decent pairs of (unembroidered) flares at the Gap and Old Navy, but for the most part, it's hopeless!

And, as a 12, I have noticed that it is really hard to find clothing in that size.

If so -you might look at the Ralph Lauren boot cut jeans. They're low rise - but not low, low. I'm short waisted, so they fit me more like a regular jean and give a longer look to my torso. They come in 12-14 too. Also, I got some cord jeans on sale at the Gap last week that are boot cut that I like a lot.

I've had no luck with shoes lately. I wear a 9 or 91/2W now. Years of high, high heels and pointy toes + having children + working on my feet= foot surgery last year to remove bone in one of my toes. The big prob is 'dressy' shoes. Living at the beach,I mostly go barefoot or casual.

Very hard to find.

It's so difficult to find anything that fits me. Another thing that's difficult: dress shoes that don't have heels.

sizes. My problem is that I wear a 9-1/2 or 10 AA. Try finding THAT one. Sadly, the rest of me isn't especially thin-- just my feet. I look like I'm on skis all the time.

My best fitting shoes are my $400 tall English riding boots and my $130 paddock boots. I can find $100 pairs of Italian leather dress boots. I get those for Christmas and wear them for years.

I actually own a pair of 9.5N Frye cowboy boots that fit perfectly. I've had them since 1980. I love those boots.

Even the narrow footbed Birkenstocks that I purchased in Germany are still too wide!

has been, for years, that the world is populated by women with little round feet, like paws, since there are so many shoes in sizes like 5W or 6W, and hardly anything in the big but narrow sizes I wear. But since this thread suggests that people with wide feet can't get shoes to fit, either, the real problem might be the shape of the shoes that are labled wide -- they are too narrow in the wrong places. Those grotesque, insane pointy toes can't be helping that situation.

Man, it's impossible to find nice loafers. Everything looks like crap! The only cool shoes i see end up being some ridiculous price like $275 or higher. That stinks. It wasn't this way just 5 years ago.
The Professor

And I inherited them from her. Size 10 1/2 wide to 11, depending on the shoe. Very wide just below the toes, plus the two outer toes on each foot tend to roll over and splat outwards when I stand or walk.
If the toe box isn't wide and able to "give", I wind up with terrible corns between the outer toes. With feet both long and wide, I stick to shoes that are dark colors -- when I wear white shoes I look like Minnie Mouse. :(

It's good to know I'm not alone!!! Being a female with large feet always made me feel sort of like a freak. On the upside, if I kick someone's ass with these feet, that someone knows they've been kicked!! }(

"On the upside, if I kick someone's ass with these feet, that someone knows they've been kicked!!" :-)