Why are BJD shoes made so much larger than their feet?

A shoe needs to be large enough on the inside to accommodate an inflexible doll foot. If you were to put on a pair of snug shoes, you'd be able to flex your feet and wiggle them in, and if need be the flesh of your feet and the flexible material of the shoes would probably squish enough to fit. With doll feet and doll shoes you're trying to put a rigid, inflexible object into a small space, and the process is a lot less forgiving. Most doll shoes are made slightly larger than the true size of the doll's foot to give them extra maneuvering room and make it easier to put the shoes on the doll. The extra space also helps if you want the doll to be wearing socks with their shoes.

Another thing to note is that the materials most doll shoes are made of are relatively bulky. The thickness of the hems and seams, as well as the size and shape of the sole, all affect the final size of the shoe- 2mm or 3mm here or there isn't much on a human scale, but when you're dealing with doll scale, all of that can add up to a pair of shoes meant for 5.5cm feet measuring 6.5cm in overall length.

When you're looking for doll shoes, your best bets will be to either buy directly from your doll's manufacturer, or to buy based on the inner measurement of the shoe, which gives a much better approximation of whether your doll might fit it.

 

Like what the above member said.
Another good example would be like trying to fit your foot into a rainboot that is exactly the same size as your foot...don't think you'll ever be able to do it.
It also wouldn't work that well. I have a pair of shoes for my tiny. It was made exactly to her size. Good thing? No. Coz I have a really hard time trying to fit her in them when she's wearing SOCKS.

 

Also, bigger boots will allow for at least some movement of the ankle joint - which is important since it's necessary with many dolls (all of mine) that you can move the ankle joint at least a bit so you can balance them so they'll stand on their own. Very tight boots or boots made of very stiff material don't allow for that. I always find it difficult to get my dolls to stand in that kind of boots.

 

I haven't got either of my dolls yet but I have acquired a few pairs of shoes for them - and they do seem massive! Because I thought they would be way too big I made sure the next pair I got was smaller but I'm pretty confident they are not going to fit. But on the plus side I now have a variety of sizes so I can try out what fits, I suppose! And so long as they don't look ridiculously huge I could pad the toes out, right?

 

I buy shoes by the internal dimensions (rather than the SD/MSD size designation) for this very reason.

Of course, it helps that a lot of my dolls are old-fashioned children so they can wear basic Mary-Jane styles from places like Boneka (http://www.boneka-dollfashion.de/ep.../61533279/Categories/Puppenschuhe/Schuhe/057N) and JuJu's Dollymall (http://www.jujusdollymall.com/) although both of them do offer other styles like boots and sandals too.

Some of the places specialisign in BJD shoes give their dimensions too, with the result that several of my SD size kids wear shoes that are marketed as MSD size. Boots that have a zip down to the heel don't need wriggle room to get an inflexible foot into them, and putting them in the smaller sizes does away with the "I'm-Wearing-Clown-Shoes" look I see in many photos of BJDs

Teddy

 

I swear that the first generation of mini dolls had a footsize of 6cm, which would explain the shoe size (even though google is telling me otherwise!)

But I think the 6.5cm is actually the outside measurement? Sure, there would be some gapping as the shoe material wouldn't make up the remaining cm difference(!), but nevertheless, the difference would still be minimal if your mini had a bigger foot on average. My Soom Little Gem girl (footsize 5.7cm with socks on) is wearing 6.5cm shoes, and it's a pretty snug fit

It also depends on what type of mini dolls you have. I had a slim mini wear the same shoes as my Soom girl, and it did look comical, but the moment I put them onto my Soom's feet, they seemed in proportion and less clown-like. So if you want slim mini shoes, it's best to have a look around the slim threads as they'll have thinner shoes to suit the thinner foot.

(Bonus extra: I wouldn't be surprised if these clown-like shoes are just a scaled down version of porcelain doll shoes, as it'd be cheaper for the factory to scale down than to redraft a new pattern.)

 

I'm pretty sure my MSD AoD boy from 2007 had 6cm feet. I know I had shoes that were too small for him, and others I could get on but were very hard to get off!


But it is important to go with inner measurement, not outer. Pointy toed shoes, for example, need to be a lot longer, since doll feet can't squish into them.

 

I feel the same way, [MENTION=62529]robots&things[/MENTION] , even if 6.5cm is the outside measurement of the shoe, it still looks like clown shoes when you have a doll with 5.5cm feet. The thinner the material, the better, I suppose, but 1cm adds quite a bit of length to a dainty foot, imo.

 

My doll is an MSD with a 6 cm sized foot. I'm mostly afraid of going too small than too big. He only has a pair of shoes with an inner length of 6 cm and these fit him with no issues.

The thing that I'm wary of is getting pointed shoes with an inner length of 6 cm. I'm not sure if this includes the pointed end and think they might end up being too small. I think I'd just go a half size bigger for this type of thing though, a whole other cm would make the shoes appear too large.

 

Iplehouse dolls have smaller feet and their shoes are correspondingly smaller - so soome of thir shoes may work for you.

Teddy

 

Also ReleaseRain. My Resinsoul and Dollzone both have seems 5.5.cm feet and their shoes are made just a few centimeters bigger. Their quality is really nice too, the sneaker boots I bought from them fit both my Resinsoul Song boy (and Resinsouls are famous for tiny feet) and my Dollzone Hybrid girl also fits them perfectly. There's also Keychain shoes that work well, (for those you wanna search by inches mine I got by searching 3 inch keychain shoes)

 

My girl has 7 cm feet, so finding cute shoes that fit well with or without socks is next to impossible. I wish there were more reasonably priced shoes in her size...

 

This is why my dolls don't have shoes, they all have 5cm feet and most msd shoes have an inner lenght of 6cm. I still have to find shoes that fit.

 

How about these?:
http://www.boneka-dollfashion.de/ep...uhe_zum_Einkaufspreis/055X__55mm_x_29mm_breit

Or JuJu's Dolly Mall has 50mm and 54mm sizes.

There are limited styles but lots of colours.

Teddy

 

I have this same struggle with my Shinydoll mini, most shoes designated for minis are huge on her.

I think Adhara is right, older minis did seem to have bigger feet, and the trend nowadays is for slimmer dolls with smaller feet. So they could be older designs.

 

Thanks for the suggestion [MENTION=7419]Teddy[/MENTION] but that style isn't for me, I need mostly sport type shoes or elegant male shoes for my boy (you know those pointy kind of shoes?) and elegant maybe heeled kinda goth kind of shoes... it's even harder when you're looking for something specific I guess.

Older MSDs did have bigger feet and most shops that don't have dolls of their own usually follow those standard sizes. It's the same issue with clothes, there's a little more choice though and even if a little big they don't look so bad. While for shoes, if it's too big they won't stand in it so they can't wear them.