General Footwear Size Chart: Fill & Download for Free

I'm 6'0. Compared to other women, this is exceptionally tall. Like, I'm taller than about 99% of women. I love almost everything about being tall, and wouldn't even mind growing a few more inches (so I could be even better at sports)That's me on the left, obviously!I've always been super tall compared to my peers, but it never bothered me in the slightest. It's very confusing to me when I hear people say, "It must have been hard growing up." Because, wait -- why? What's hard about being able to physically dominate everyone around you? What's hard about being better at sports and able to pass for older? As I wrote in 7 Scuba Safety Tips You Won't Learn in Dive Training, I've been able to scuba dive since LONG before it was legal. I can't remember being too short for any roller coaster. And, in general, tall people are kind of gorgeous.We just kind of go on and on. It's awesome! #ChooseBeautifulI love sports, I love roughhousing, and I love competition. Which is probably at least partly due to my size. According to Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, my natural size advantage and athleticism made me stand out athletically. My maturity may have been mistaken for ability, resulting in me getting extra feedback, extra attention, and extra playtime. Even in a world where wishy washy adults were fighting for "equal play time," the meritocracy often worked out in my favor. If I didn't get to play the whole game, I'd usually get to play all but two minutes. The inverse was true for many of my shorter classmates.It instilled a love for sports and competition. It instilled a great work ethic. But, of course, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, because I've always wanted to be the fastest. I've always wanted the ball. Being tall just reinforced that.And now I'm an adult, and nothing's changed. I still love playing sports, and my game is super physical (even though many of the guys have caught up with me). I love jumping over someone and stealing a frisbee they thought was all theirs. I love making sweet post moves in the paint. Unlike a lot of women (and men, and people), I seldom exercise for the sake of exercise. I exercise because I want to go muscle people around or climb some really hard routes.H/t The Happy TalentI've pretty much never had to ask someone to help me reach something or open something. (Which I like, because I'm all about empowerment.)Possibly because it's easier to hear them, possibly because of a representation bias, possibly because of something else, most of my friends have always been dudes. Which is awesome. I can share bikes, sports equipment and, sometimes, shoes with my male friends (I think the average height for males is about 5'10). I've actually started dating guys before after discovering we could wear the same size wetsuit.I have my own 7mm now. And I've caught and shot many delicious dinners in it. From: The Best Productivity Hack In The Whole World Is This One.Meanwhile, I can't always share clothes with other girls. Shoes are almost certainly a no-go, because what woman wears a size 10 shoe? If we're talking about something off-the-rack, though, we can often make it work -- much to their surprise. For some reason, many short women assume I'm, like, a size 10, even though I'm actually more like a 4. But, as I wrote in One Model Tried On 10 Different Pairs Of Size 16 Jeans. Here's Why They All Fit Differently, when one dress can fit two women with such different proportions, does either of us really look ideal in that dress?I don't "feel awkward" or whatever because of my height -- for the most part, I don't even think of it. It would be kind of weird if I did, right? That'd be like going to a party and getting really hung up on the color of your hair. I also don't not wear heels because I'm afraid I'll be taller than other people. I wear whatever footwear I want -- it's usually flats, though. Because 1) I only have one pair of feet, and it would be extremely stupid to injure them because of bad shoe choice, 2) If I'm going to be doing any kind of partner dance, it makes it hard/impossible for a lot of men to turn me, because they can't reach over my head, or 3) When I wear heels to any kind of crowded or loud thing, it makes it really hard to hear most women and some men when they're speaking.I guess the one and only drawback to my height is clothes. As a woman who's, like, 2.5 standard deviations above the mean, pretty much everythingIwearis super short on me.Half the dresses I try on fit like shirts. Half the shorts I try on are... not quite appropriate for a family picnic. Most of my height is in my legs, so finding shirts isn't so bad -- but jackets are often too short in the arms.The place where I often have the most shopping success... is the sale rack. A lot of the things that end up on clearance -- and especially super duper clearance -- are there because there's something off about them. A lot of the time, it's that they're too long. Almost every pair of jeans I own was originally $80-$100... marked down to $8-20. So that's a perk.These sweet yoga pants were, like, $12. Because look how long they are!But then there's things like wetsuits. I've been buying a lot of wetsuits lately -- and it's always tricky, because I'm not even on the size chart:Say I were. Say I were only 5'10. I still wouldn't have a 31-33 inch waist or 41-43 inch hips. So what ended up happening was that I got a men's medium 4/3 Wetsuit for surfing, a women's size 6 2mm Spring Suit (since it doesn't have legs and my height is in my legs) for summer surfing, a women's size 12 Bare Elastek 7mm Step-in Hooded Vest for scuba diving (I bought it to replace my women's size 4 Aqualung 5mm Hooded Vest, which didn't even come down to my bellybutton), and a women's 12T 7mm Women's Wetsuit, for coldwater diving.The awesome thing about the 2mm -- it makes me super easy to find in the lineup. The bad thing -- it can definitely get a little chilly at the end of the day.So I, the same girl, now own a men's medium as well as a women's 6, 4, 12, and 12T wetsuit. I think sizing would have been a bit simpler if I were, you know, a normal height.Finally, regarding boys. Sure, a lot of them are shorter. And my height serves as a great filter. If you're some dude who doesn't want to date me because I'm taller than you, you're some dude without a lot of confidence -- and I prefer guys with confidence. Generally, I've dated men around my height or taller (with a few exceptions), which I think is great -- that's how Stanford athlete babies are made. :P

My online clothing purchases pretty much parallel my online grocery shopping that delivers. There are certain safe products, and some I prefer to pick out in person. Clothing-wise, I will not order footwear online, except socks, because my foot is wider and I need to try shoes on. Grocery-wise, I’m not going to trust the 17 yr old stock associate to select my produce or butcher products, but will trust them to gather the bottled, frozen or canned items, thus reducing the odds of a poor fit. For clothes, I look for a place that has a lot of what I like in style and price. And thru a little trial and error, find what generally fits and stick with it, because sizing and cut is not consistent from vendor to vendor, or exporting country. I have the best success sticking with items that have give, that are not form-fitting. Doubly good because my style is loose, comfy and casual. So I’m buying pants with an elastic waist, not a zipper and snap, and tops from a site that has sizing charts. Also I look at where the clothes come from. Made in the USA vs Imported/European measurement standards. I’ve been buying most of my clothes online for many years, trial and error at first, but have found a couple sites that suit my needs and that I can trust to give me what I ordered. Free returns. I honestly do not remember the last time I actually tried clothes on before a purchase, and see no reason to change that. Now shoes, on the other hand…

Shoes are complicated to make, much more complicated than a casual observer would think, and comfort is not guaranteed even with correct fit.The foot-shaped form around which a shoe is built is called a last. The first thing that would need to happen is that you'd have to create a left and right foot last for each customer. Then, depending upon the style of shoe involved, you'd have to customize each shoe part (every piece of foam, every piece of fabric or leather, every heel counter, every arch cookie, etc. to conform precisely to that customer's left and right feet. But that's not really necessary because the footwear industry is already engaged in a pretty serious form of mass customization.Here is a table of shoe size conversions for women and men, from shoe sizes into inches and centimeters.Credit: zapposThat's a lot of SKUs. And this chart only takes into account the length of the shoe, not the width or depth.As you can see, the differences between half sizes up and down are quite small, generally 3-4 mm per half size in the mid ranges where the vast majority of people's feet would be found (shoe size is a bell curve too). Considering that people have individual preferences in terms of snugness vs. looseness (for example, I can't wear shoes if my toes don't have enough wiggle room), and that there are differences in the thicknesses of different kinds of socks and stockings, it's quite unusual for a person to find that it is impossible to buy shoes that fit comfortably. What's more common is that a person will take a size 9 in sandals, perhaps a size 10 in sneakers, and perhaps a size 9.5 in loafers, reflecting the different uses and different styles of hosiery (or lack thereof) that are associated with each kind of shoe. People try on a lot of shoes in their lives and gravitate to brands whose lasts are shaped most like their feet, and whose shoes are most comfortable for them. I personally have learned that I have good luck with Dansko and Keen shoes, for example, but that Asics aren't very comfortable for me. I wore exclusively Nike sneakers for 20 years before I went to work there, and I still do, because their lasts fit me best. Someone else may swear by Asics. That's OK.It's always possible to get shoes custom made, if money is no object, but for the vast majority of shoe-wearing consumers, it would not necessarily create a better result.