Sizes drive me round the bend. You wouldn’t think it would be that difficult, right? But it really, really, is.
Shoe Sizes
Are UK Men’s shoe sizes the same as UK Women’s shoe sizes? Opinions seem to differ. Whilst the length might be the same (but isn’t), the width, or more accurately the width profile along the length, seems to differ.
Boy-mode is simple: Men’s UK Size 8/8.5 – sometimes need 8.5 to get the width, or a wide-fitting 8. How difficult can it be?
Girl-mode is NOT simple. I have Women’s UK Size 8’s which are far too small. I have Women’s UK Size 9’s which are too small. I have Women’s UK Size 9’s which are too big. I’ve had a Women’s UK Size 10 which was too narrow to wear.
UK Men’s Size 8 is usually EU Size 42, although the official conversion gives EU 42 corresponding to UK 8.5, which might explain why many Women’s UK Size 8’s are EU Size 41 instead. There is no substitute for actually trying them on of course.
Update: On irregularchoice.com, I found this sizing information here about male vs female EU sizes (the ones which were, I thought, supposed to be unisex).
This suggests that if I normally wear a men’s EU 42, that I should be looking for EU 43.
This does actually match quite of lot of my experience, in retrospect.
But why?!
What is wrong with having ONE size system here instead of two?
My head hurts.
Now that I have enough confidence, possibly even bordering upon chutzpah, I don’t shy away from trying shoes & boots on in shops – stroll in, in boy-clothes, ask for the likely fitting size of girl-shoes and simply try them on then and there. It slightly surprises me how none of the staff bat an eyelid at this, although a colleague shared with me some interesting experience of when she worked in a major chain of ladies shoe shop. She was forever seeing men (young and old) come in to try on the ladies shoes, to the extent that this just became par for the course. There are some shops where I can order for delivery to the store, then when they arrive try them on right there and then, and return/refund the ones which do not fit – which is, sadly, rather a high proportion of them – in my personal experience about 80% of them.
One of the problems is that many stores’ ranges simply do not go particularly large. Several stop at a UK Size 9 or even 8 (EU41). What are taller ladies supposed to do – spend their entire lives wearing sensible shoes?!
My Favourite Boots
From next.co.uk in the largest size in the range for this model: UK Size 8 – EU41, so a little tight.
£228 making them expensive but, now that I have stretched them a little (real leather), the ONLY boots I have which let me dance for 6-8 hours without much rest.
A decent boot-stretcher is a wise investment.
Ordering shoes/boots online is also a complete minefield.
You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Me Loose Heel
If you buy shoes/boots with high heels online from sellers located outside of the EU, then you may discover the hard way that the standards for attaching the heel are vastly inferior to those inside the EU* I mean, really shockingly inferior.
But they sell well because they are much cheaper. Shades of a potential Shoe Shop Event Horizon situation developing #HHGTTG
When my favourite pair of boots shed one heel and the other was clearly wobbly and not long for this world, it cost more than the original price of the boots to have them fixed properly (thanks Timpson’s – a really good job done on those, whilst providing experience to someone still in jail to prepare them for gainful employment once outside)
*Currently the UK still require the higher standard, but that could change (given stated plans to dump ALL “EU Legislation” even though the UK drafted most of it) and heaven help us high-heel wearers if it does; I’ll have to stick to “EU Standard” only as UK manufactured items will be too risky.
Standards are great. Everyone should have one. The trouble is… everybody does – their own!
And that’s just shoes. The easy part.
Body / Dress Size
“A very creditable 34 plus, sir.”
“Plus what?”
“Plus lunch, put it that way, sir.”
The Tailor of Panama
Without wishing to teach anyone to suck eggs, a diagram might help here. The classic “female form” has hips significantly wider than the waist.
Short of hormonal treatment, a carpet I’m neither walking along nor planning so to do, the closest to this shape I’m likely to achieve (through shedding some weight) is hips and waist being the same measurement. And this is a problem because that’s simply not how the clothes work. Frequently a stunning elegant dress, upon close inspection of the technical specifications, has a tiny waist – often 25cm (10″) small than the hip size. So the tailored / close-fitting look is out.
Here’s a typical example:
In this case about 20″ (50cm!) difference between the waist and hips dimensions. On these figures, I’d need a 10XL to fit my waist and the the other dimensions would be ludicrous.
Add to the mix the incredible range of sizes claimed by manufacturers, which I suggest to you is simply “beyond insanity”. To illustrate this, I photographed the size marking in over 40 dresses in my wardrobe – ALL OF WHICH FIT ME.
In this first set, we have everything claimed from PETITE through SMALL, MEDIUM/LARGE, LARGE, EXTRA LARGE, 2XL and 3XL.
But then we also have more 3XL, plus 4XL, plus 5XL. I won’t count the 7XL since that unhelpfully specifies “Asia Size” and I don’t know anything about the sizing system in use there.
So that’s SMALL all the way to 5XL and they all fit me. I smell a rat. A 5XL rat at least, probably larger than a decent sized cat.
Size Matters
You can’t win. You can’t break even. And you can’t even quit the game.
A plain-language statement of the Laws of Thermodynamics
Whilst I, personally, don’t mind being regarded as a 5XL (or Small, depending!), size descriptions like this are both vague and can stigmatise. When the average woman’s size in the UK is described by Boohoo and others as “Large”, what message does this send to girls and women?
So, whether in inches or centimetres, how about just giving the actual relevant sizes? Data without implied societal judgement. Maybe it’s too much effort… much easier just to slap a random single size description on, eh?
Sophie Baskerville 