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If the Shoe Fits: Fun Footwear Facts You Didn’t Know (Infographic)

Enrich your mind and sole by reading these interesting shoe facts!

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Footwear Finances

  • Footwear industry annual revenue: $48 billion
  • How much U.S. consumers spend on shoes: $20 billion

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How Shoes Share the Market

  1. Men’s athletic: 20%
  2. Women’s athletic: 10%
  3. Men’s casual: 9%
  4. Women’s casual: 17%
  5. Men’s dress: 6%
  6. Women’s dress: 13%
  7. Other styles: 25%

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Interest Facts

  • On average, women buy 469 pairs of shoes spend about $25,000 US dollars on shoes over their lifetime
  • The average woman wore a size 3.5-4 in the beginning of the 20th century. The average increased to 5.5 from the 40s to the 60s. In the 70s, the average size increased to 7.5. Today the average size is 8.5-9. That’s more than an entire size within the last 30 years.
  • Typically, women start wearing heels around the age of 12 and stop wearing them around 63.
  • The man with the world record’s largest feet are 1 foot and 3 inches or 38.1 cm long.
  • The most expensive pair of shoes were the Ruby Slippers worn by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. They sold for $660,000 U.S. dollars on June 2, 2000.

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A Walk Through Shoe History

  • There was no difference between a left and right shoe until the 19th century. All shoes were the same shape.
  • Until the 18th century, there was no difference between mens and womens shoes. The styles were the same.
  • Monarchs dictated the type of shoes that people were allowed to wear:
    • Louis XIV was only 5 feet 5 inches tall, so he made high-heeled shoes for men popular… and required men to wear them.
    • Henry VIII made a law that required shoes to be 6 inches wide because his feet were swollen from Gout and wanted everyone else’s shoes to look the same as his.
    • Sneakers were invented by Keds in 1917. They were called sneakers because of the new invention of rubber soles that were quiet when you walked. People could “sneak” around in them without others hearing them.
    • In the 17th century, the upper class would wear six-inch heels that would require them to have two servants on either side to hold them up.
    • The shoes that Neil Armstrong wore when he walked on the moon are still floating around on the moon. He had to sacrifice his shoes in order to offset the weight of bringing moon rocks back to Earth.<

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    Brought to you by Walking on a Cloud | walkingonacloud.ca

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    Sources:

    100 Shoes Facts


    http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-facts-about-the-history-shoes.html
    http://www.shoeshistoryfacts.com/shoes-facts/shoes-interesting-information/
    http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2011/10/confirmed-brahim-takioullah-sets-world-record-for-largest-feet/

    Size 8 Is the New 7: Why Our Feet Are Getting Bigger


    http://www.statisticbrain.com/footwear-industry-statistics/
    http://www.tsmplug.com/richlist/nike-highest-paid-endorsement-deals/