Shoe Size Conversion for Dummies

Converting shoes from Euro to US Sizes

If there's anything in the world of clothing that is more confusing than the mishmash of women's clothing departments: juniors? misses? petites? It's the whole shoe size thing. What on Earth does a shoe size of 10½ mean, anyway? We asked an Antisocial Network staffer who once sold shoes what it all meant, and he admitted that he had no earthly idea. Apparently it's a trade secret... To make matters worse, you can now buy shoes with "Euro" sizing. Instead of the familiar 7, 8, and 9; these shoes are sized 39, 42, 45, etc... Well, we looked to Leaf.tv for help and found that multiple DOTD winner Alicia Bodine had written "How to Convert a Euro Shoe Size to a US Shoe Size." Her only problem was that, unfortunately, she was full of it.

Just as she did her other five times, Bodine started tossing around the bull almost immediately:

"It is not uncommon to go shopping for shoes only to open the tag and see 38 Euro or the like. This is because the United States imports some shoes from Europe, and the Euro number is the European measurement for a shoe size. A 38 Euro happens to equal a 7 ½ U.S. shoe size for a woman. Before you go shopping, it might be helpful for you to understand how to convert European shoe sizes to U.S. shoe sizes."

We aren't sure where Alicia goes to find tags to open on her shoes, but we'll let that pass. Instead, we'll concentrate on her errors... First, it's still uncommon to find Euro sizes on shoes in a brick-and-mortar store unless you're buying special shoes like cycling cleats. You're more likely to find them online. Second, "Euro" doesn't mean the shoe is imported from Europe, just that the originating country uses the Euro sizing scheme. They could be from China! and third, a 38 Euro is not a 6½ US women's, it's a size seven!

Bodine goes on to make a complete mess of attempting to convert show sizes. According to Alicia, you... Take the European measurement and subtract 30 from it to get the women’s U.S. shoe size. Take the European measurement and subtract 31 ½ from it to get the men’s U.S. shoe measurement. Convert infant shoes by subtracting 15 from the Euro measurement. Subtract 16 from a Euro measurement to find a toddler’s U.S. shoe size.

The main problem we see with Alicia's scheme is that Euro sizes are (almost always) whole numbers, so what can you subtract 30 from to get a woman's size 8½? or subtract 31½ from to get a man's size 9? Oh, yeah, and her examples are wrong, too: a US woman's 5 is either a Euro 35 or 36 depending on the last; a man's 11½ is a Euro 45, not a 43 as Bodine claims.

The truth? the difference in sizes doesn't reduce to a simple conversion factor, so Bodine is (once again) full of it. The best way to convert sizes is to look it up on a chart, such as the one at Zappos or the the one at Healthy Feet. If you depend on our Dumbass of the Day, you're probably gonna get blisters!

copyright © 2017-2022 scmrak

SE - FASHION