Good evening all.
I discovered this site a few days ago and am absolutely fascinated by the research that you're all doing. I come to this with no preconceptions and I'm not even a fraction of the way through reading the material here, so a long way from drawing any conclusions for myself or ascribing to any theory.
I'm likely to more of a lurker, as I have no particular expertise to contribute but I felt compelled to register after reading this particular thread.
The one thing I do know about though is shoes and although I realise this thread is NOT a debate about estimated shoe sizes, there do seem to be some inconsistencies between UK / US / men's / women's shoe sizes quoted in here.
I've checked and double checked various conversion sites in case I was misremembering my last online shoe purchase from the US and I'm confident that what I'm saying is factually correct.
I'll point you to this sample source
http://www.dancesport.uk.com/shoes/conchart.htm as it also includes Japanese shoe sizes which are handily stated in cms, but there are plenty more conversion sites out there should anyone want to check.
Chris, there is only a half shoe size difference between US and UK shoe sizes. Not enough to make an issue of.
You're absolutely correct in stating that there is only a half shoe size difference between US and UK for men. However, for us ladies and just to add confusion, the difference between UK and US shoes is a whopping 2 and a half sizes.
A UK size 10 is a US men's 10.5 but a
US ladies' 12.5 which is a significant difference (not to mention very large for a woman)
The Shoe Fetish 2 Bulletin states:
"TIGHAR has a pair of dress shoes (shown at right) that Amelia reportedly purchased in Ireland in 1932. She gave them to her friend Helen Hutson Weber in November of that year, according to Ms. Weber, “not for sentimental reasons but because they hurt her.” The shoes measure 254mm or 10 inches in length, roughly an American woman’s size 6 1/2. The shoes are quite narrow, AA or perhaps even AAA width."
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/31_ShoeFetish2/31_ShoeFetish2.html
Again, I think there's some confusion in this article between US ladies' and men's shoes.
The link I put above usefully has the Japanese sizing which is in centimetres.
A measurement of 254mm equates roughly to a UK size 6.5 - 7, US Mens' 7-7.5 but US Ladies' 9 - 9.5 (no point quibbling about a couple of centimetres or half a shoe size here and there, but I think the article may be mixing up men's and ladies' shoe sizes???)
By no means is this meant as a criticism of the work here. Apologies if this is reopening an already covered discussion (I couldn't find it) or if I've somehow got my facts mixed up.
I don't know if this helps or hinders in furthering the discussion, so I'll leave all of you more knowledgeable people to draw your own conclusions and take this forward if there's any value in it.
From a woman's perspective,
Sarah,
Shoe Queen.