Why do shoe makers actually make your shoes smaller than you think?

If you read anything about medieval history you will find many interesting stories from shoemakers. Back then they actually made the shoes from hand and they were really just 5 pieces altogether. You had the left and right sides, the tongue and toe piece and then the heal and sole. In many cases just different types of leather was used for the sole – they hadn’t found rubber yet I guess.

Shoemakers back then had a common complaint, if you have read you would know. They complained that people always think that their shoes are bigger than they really are. No matter who it is if they would ask the size of a mans shoe, he would tell them at least one size too large. In most cases they measured anyway and went on to make the shoe. So not only did they need to bite their tongues and not tell the customer that they had an inflated idea of how big their shoes are, but also measure and not say anything at that point.

This could cause some problems as I am sure you can imagine. Two guys come in with different sized feet arguing over who had the largest foot and the shoe maker would have to lie or worse just to get out of the fight. As I understand it fights were something you didn’t want to be a part of back then as most people carried knives and were apt to use them. All this over the size of your shoe.

So today we have small show sizes is the point. Years ago the shoemakers got together and decided that they were going to reduce the size of a shoe – making its numerical size larger. So a 12 became a 14 and a 14 became a 16 etc. So when you go to the store and pick up a 10.5 you are really using a medieval 8 or so.

It is a amazing what the powers of the mind can accomplish. There is much more to the story, but I have to tell you in person.

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