Researchers at Simon Fraser University have confirmed something half the running population already knew. Women's running shoes are men's running shoes, shrunk down and recoloured.
The study, published in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, interviewed women runners aged 20 to 70 and found the industry's approach — they call it "shrink it and pink it" — ignores the actual shape and mechanics of women's feet. Shoes are built on a last modelled on male anatomy. The women's version is the same mould, smaller, usually in lavender.
The detail that got me was how the women coped. They sized up half a size just to get a toe box that didn't crush their forefoot, then dealt with heel slip as the trade-off.
Sound familiar?
That's not a women's fit problem. That's a shoe shape problem, and women are copping the worst version of something the whole industry does. The fix isn't a pink last. It's a shoe shaped like a foot.
Meanwhile, one barefoot brand has decided the sizing problem isn't worth solving. It's worth deleting.
Vivobarefoot launched its Tabi Gen 02 last month — a sandal 3D-printed from a scan of your own feet. Stand on a scanner in store, and a few weeks later a shoe arrives shaped to your actual anatomy. Not a men's last. Not a women's last. Yours. It's $150, printed on demand, available in a handful of stores for now.
It's a sandal, so let's not get carried away. But put the two stories side by side. One half of the industry is being told its foot moulds are wrong for half the population. The other is working out how to stop using moulds entirely.
I know which direction I'd bet on.
What's the worst fit compromise you've made to get a shoe that works? Hit reply — I read everything.
Run light, Lachlan