Amphigouri: varnished nonsense

I have big feet, and have since I was a child. It was small consolation to a self-conscious 7th grade girl that her size 9s were actually appropriate for her height, since being the tallest girl (and often tallest kid, period) in junior high in and of itself was a source of significant angst. My mother’s assertions that “if you had smaller feet, you’d fall right over! It would look funny!”, while they stuck with me, didn’t do much to alleviate the distress over having feet at least two sizes larger than those of my friends.

I eventually got over the whole size issue (though feet in general, still yuck), especially when a college roommate pointed me to catalogues where I could order my size 11s (and above). These days, size 11 is practically commonplace, and I can even go in some shops and buy them right off the shelves. They’re actually pretty stylish, too (unlike some of the clothing styles marketed to larger-sized women, but that’s a whole other rant).

This afternoon I wandered into one of the local shops looking for a last-minute pair of shoes to wear to a semi-casual function this weekend; I’ve had reasonable luck at this place this summer — relatively inexpensive footwear, several styles in my size, many of which I’ve actually liked. Finally, after scanning most of the aisles, I found exactly what I was looking for, and in the size I needed. But… the store completely ruined it for me by placing a big, bright red sticker on the box labeling it OVERSIZED.

Sigh, wtf?

Though size 11 is generally the largest size this store carries (and in many styles they top out at 10), these days it really can’t be considered “oversized”… and even if it could, what kind of marketing brilliance is it to use that term on any women’s fashion (or fashion in general)? It’s not flattering (it calls to mind those signs on trucks transporting half-houses or huge boats on the highway: OVERSIZED LOAD ), and if the intent was to highlight the size, the same large red sticker could have been used to simply state SIZE 11. Obviously the labels were created by someone not familiar with image-angst. Fortunately, I like this particular “boat-of-shoe” (and they don’t even look that big) and will happily don them this weekend, but please, these places need to get a marketing clue. :-/

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