See the shoe above these words, it’s an Air Spiridon which I bought it a little while ago at Sportie LA and fuck do I love it! Yes I know it’s not the original one that’s pictured below these words. There are several reasons I love it but the most important one is that it actually fits me and my feet don’t hurt when I wear it, like they do when I wear the sample size pairs. I will now run the risk of stating the complete obvious considering the type of people that read this magazine, but sample size for guys is a 9, and my feet are a 10. And as much as I wish they were a 9 sometimes I wish they were a 12 so that I wouldn’t continually kid myself that ‘Yep those shoes in a colorway that no-one will ever have might just fit me if scrunch my toes a little, wear no socks and don’t really walk anywhere’.
Before I bought the above Spiridons I was given 2 pairs of samples (thanks to my sister's workmate's husband who is a top bloke, anyway enough arse-kissing) and I wore the barstards night and day despite the fact that they didn’t fit. I bought the thinnest socks available (I stopped just short of wearing stokings) stood around a lot, hobbled from place to place (which is ironic because the shoes were originally designed to run in and I couldn’t even walk in them) but really they weren’t getting any bigger and my feet weren’t getting any smaller. That night I remembered something from somewhere about Chinese women that bound their feet to make them smaller so I checked the information super highway and this is what I found.
“Foot binding began between the ages of four and seven. A strip of bandage ten feet long and two inches wide was wrapped tightly around the foot. The four small toes were broken and bent under the sole. The arch of the foot was bowed to make the foot shorter. The bandage was tightened each day and the foot was put into smaller and smaller shoes. In two years, the process was finished. By then, the foot was useless for walking very far. Bound feet had to be washed and cared for daily. If toe nails grew into the instep, infection could set in. If the bindings were too tight, gangrene and blood poisoning could occur. The bound foot was painful and tender forever. It often had an unpleasant smell.”
Fucking hell - what was I thinking? My feet could end up green and smelling unpleasant, that’s bullshit. Look at the attached pictures, this is really fucked up. I actually went to a chiropractor and asked him about wearing shoes too small. Yes I know a podiatrist would have been better but I was going anyway and keep your medical opinions to yourselves unless you are some sort of qualified health professional and even then I am not really interested... wait where was I? Oh yeah the chiropractor, well he told me I was completely off my head wearing shoes too small for me and that it could actually fuck my back. He didn’t really use those words, he’s a professional so he said stuff like ‘significant spinal mis-alignment’. It’s getting pretty serious when a doctor is telling you not to wear a pair of sneakers and reluctantly I retired the Spiridons, which was only a couple of months ago, and the saddest thing is that I know that it won’t be long before I see a sample pair that I just have to have and 2 days later you see me hobbling down the street.
And one last thing, below is an interesting fact I found on the internet and was not skillfull enough to work into the article above.
“60% of the population have different size feet. Contrary to popular belief, the left foot is 80% of the time, the larger foot. It is explained that 80% of the population is right hand dominant. That to do any work, you cannot lift with the right hand and the right foot forward. Everything is in the same plain and unbalanced. Instead you put your right hand forward and your left foot forward. This creates a three legged stool or tripod and is stable for lifting. It also exercises the foot opposite the dominant hand more, thus the slight variance in the size of the feet.”
Also, to all the people that have size 9 feet, fuck you!
:: Sebbo
