Hi Coquetas,
Growing up equals starting to become responsible with your online shopping – and I truly thought I was getting there. Turning 20 meant Depop could become my destiny. At 21, Vinted (Western Europe) entered my life and it amounted to me crossing the border to get my parcel, either by foot (Covid times), by train (Geneva-Annemasse), or by boat (to Evian). I became a logistics warrior and whenever I decided on an item, I’d obviously have to pair it with 4-5 other ones.
This brief history of my vintage online shopping brings me to the culprit of this article: shoes. Yes, once again the shoe is the apple of our eyes. But I’ve come back here to express my eternal despair regarding recent events. Read up, Coquetas, I’ve been on a very unlucky streak.
Today though, my online shopping has decreased and recently I would only bite the bullet on gorgeous designer-adjacent quality-approved pumps, or ‘scarpe con tacco in pelle’ as Google Translate would help me to get closer to something of higher quality for less than 10 euros. Sometimes I act compulsively, though. And this is my omen to cease this frivolous habit. But here’s the rundown: the last pairs of shoes I’ve bought were never my size. I wear a size EU38 or UK5, and somehow, I manage to fit from anything to a 36 up to a 39.5. Repeating the same mistake of buying shoes a little too small or too big meant I had to revert to buying my size. But to my despair, I wouldn’t even fit in 38s.
The most scandalous pair I own are these cowboy boots found in a vintage store in Paris. The seller tells me they’re a 37, I decide to try them despite thinking they’d be too small. Well, they fit, and the inner leather carries a stamped tiny 36. And not so surprisingly anymore, other Coqueta’s 36.5 Jimmy Choos also seem to fit my feet believed to be a size and a half bigger.
Being in the Benelux region meant buying not one, but two pairs of Belgian royalty A.F. Vandevorst seem like a reasonable idea. After all, shipping to the Netherlands can’t be too much, right? The initial pair are these beautiful shiny orange-bronze heels. So beautiful that I can’t take my eyes off them as I’m typing this. The perfect rounded top, comfortable 8 cm, leaping around in them sounds like the Carrie Bradshaw-crossing-the-street light run. But as this article foreshadows, they don’t fit. They awfully don’t fit and they’re a 38.5. The other pair are beautiful black ankle boots. They’re a 39 and they fit fine. But back to the heels that are a mere half size bigger: After expensive efforts of adding sticker pads on both extremities of the pumps, the illusion of their shape keeping my foot tight seemed to finally dissolve into reality. I was wrong. And now, I have to finally put my heart into selling them.
These various stories have made me realise how we can’t rely on one shoe size anymore, but rather we should embrace the lack of conformity between shoe brands and sizing (duh). Our feet carry pluralities and it’s nice to think of them as modular – especially when we begin to accept lack of comfort for style. A series of Instagram stories of a Coquetas reader and bff (who usually wears a 37) made me realise how common the phenomenon is:
Finding the perfect fit isn’t about sticking to a single number — it’s about broadening our horizons. And online shopping can be risky when you can’t slip your foot into the prettiest heels you’ve ever seen. But perhaps we need to start asking the right questions: “Can you please tell me the measurements of the sole?” Obviously only after we’ve measured our own feet.
Bisous, L