Nearly one-third of women find that standard size shoes are not wide enough

6th March 2009
Nearly one-third of women find that standard size shoes are not wide enough for their feet, a new survey* reveals.

The poll, carried out on behalf of the UK’s leading designer of fashionable footwear for women with wider feet and calves Emotion, reported that of the women asked 31 per cent said that when buying shoes they found them too narrow.

Similarly, of those women who buy high-leg boots, 23 per cent said that the calves were too narrow.

One of the reasons behind these results, claims Emotion, is that the general fitting of shoes and boots for adults has not changed at all over the past five decades.

“Most footwear is still made on a C fitting last,” explains the company’s national sales manager Neil Bennett. “Emotion is one of the few companies in the footwear industry that has kept up with the changing body shape of women, who are significantly taller and heavier today than their 1950s’ counterparts.”

Importantly, unlike some other companies, Emotion does not just take fashion footwear and make it wider. It actually designs and makes fashionable shoes and boots specifically for the wider foot and calf. This means that in some instances Emotion shoes provide a total girth circumference of up to 30mm larger than a standard shoe.

There are more than 300 stockists of Emotion footwear nationwide. A list may be found on the company’s website www.emotionshoes.co.uk. You can also buy from the website, where you will find a sizing chart to help to get the right fit.


*Survey carried out by BRMB Omnibus among 1077 women aged between 15 and 65