Any other Elefanten fans out there? I have some sizing questions....

[mollyi]

I love Elefanten shoes, but unfortunately they don't sell them in the city I live in. Figuring out sizing to order on-line is a bit tricky. What I am really wondering about is the width. I have noticed that alot of the Elefanten fall shoes I have looked at on-line are only in wide widths. One site says that European Wide and American Wide are not the same thing, and that many children can wear either Medium or Wide in European sizing. Has anyone found this to be true? I just bought a pair of shoes for Andy on ebay - they came today, and they look kind of big but I can't see anywhere on them where it says whether they are Medium or Wide width. (There was no box). His current Elefanten shoes are size 20 M, and these new ones are a 21, but they look really big for some reason. (Size 20 is supposed to be a 5, and size 21 a 5.5, so they should only be a half size different).

Molly (Mommy to Andy 2/8/02)

[egoldber]

In general, I find Elefanten shoes to run wide. But it really depends on the style.

HTH,

[redgus]

hi,
i too love elefanten and buy them for my daughter. in my experience they don't come in half sizes. my daughter wears a size 23 (7 US). i bought a pair from nordstrom.com, which by the way, has quite a large selection of styles and sizes, and i selected size 7.5, but received a 7, which fit her quite well. she did not seem to need an adjustment period, seemed very comfortable. i also bought a size 8 on ebay, but they are much too large right now.

diana

[mollyi]

I spoke with a very nice and patient lady who explained things to me. Each style of Elefanten shoe is made in only one width. (There is only one exception to this - their "Classic", which comes in both medium and wide widths). Each style has a 6-digit style #. The 5th digit in the style # denotes the width - if it is the number "4", the shoe is a wide, and if it is any other #, it is a medium. (The lady also told me that the 6th digit denotes the color - I'm not sure about the other digits).

So...the shoes I just bought on ebay (the "Brosnan") are in fact a 21 WIDE. The are not marked as such on the shoe, but according to the Elefanten lady, you cannot tell for sure by looking at the inside of the shoe, you can only tell by the style #. The shoes that Andy's Nana bought for him at Nordstroms and is sending (the "Coyote") are also a wide. In fact, every single pair of Elefanten fall shoes that I have seen is a wide - which seems odd. Andy's sandals (the "Irvin") are a medium. I am thinking that his first shoes, which I had ordered from Hanna Andersson, are also a wide, though I always thought they were a medium! Hopefully these new shoes will work out even though they are wide. I am guessing that the reason that Elefanten are thought to run wide is that in fact most of them ARE wides!

Molly (Mommy to Andy 2/8/02)

[lovin2shop]

Molly,
Thanks so much for this info. My ds has narrow feet and I have been wondering about the Elefantens.....

Amy

[ginamlee]

I bought some Elefanten shoes for my son from Sierra Trading Post last spring. They were not advertized as wide, but it said they were wide on the box. So, I sent them back and told them I wanted medium width. They said that there shouldn't be any wides, that they only had mediums, and they reordered the shoes. Well, the new pair had wide on the box, too. I decided to just try them out. Even though they say wide, they fit my son's medium width foot just fine. So, I'm thinking that Elefanten's version of "wide" is not quite as wide as, say, Stride Rite's.

[mollyi]

I totally think you are right about Elefanten's version of a wide not being as wide as an American version of wide such as Stride Rite. I am guessing that perhaps the Elefanten Medium may be alittle narrower than a Stride Rite medium as well - I am guessing this because a friend of mine whose daugher has a slightly narrow foot likes to buy her Elefantens (medium width) because she says that they fit her better than most other brands.

It does seems like on-line companies don't do a very good job of letting you know what the width is of Elefanten shoes. For example, Nordstrom.com doesn't seem to mention anything about width for their Elefanten shoes - so if I was ordering shoes, I would assume that I was ordering medium width. But, as I discovered this week, most of Elefanten's shoes seem to only come in wide. And Elefanten doesn't always mark the shoe with an "M" or "W", so you can't necessarily tell that way either. You have to either know the style # so you can check the 5th digit, or call Elefanten and tell them the style name and they will be able to tell you the width. (Their phone # is 1-800-MY5TOES if anyone needs it).

Molly (Mommy to Andy 2/8/02)