A new generation of footwear brands are working to rewrite the traditional definition of who can wear what.
You won’t find a pair of Syro boots with a heel less than five inches. Some styles, like the silver-trimmed Kitten Disco – a fabulous glittery, ankle-length specimen complete with a wrap hem – even six o’clock. The aptly named shoes are perfect for the hippest nightclub in town, or, according to co-founder Shaobo Han, for any errand.
“Syro shoes are meant to be worn walking down the aisles of the local grocery store,” says Han. “We aim to normalize female expression for our queer customers. Offstage, across the runway, on the street—that’s where you’ll find us. This is the real deal.”
Since its inception in 2016, Syro has designed and manufactured high heels in exclusively large sizes, ranging from 8 to 14 for American men. Now, nearly eight years later, Syro remains what Han calls “a selfish endeavor,” in that it caters to a hugely underserved population of the footwear market, one that includes Han and their co-founder, Henry Bae.
“Mission Syro is a deeply personal mission for both of us because we shared experiences as queer youth growing up in a homophobic, queerphobic society,” says Han, who was born in Southwest China and raised in Flushing, Queens. They met Bae online during their freshman year of college. “The liberation and exploration of femininity is central to our growth and something we’ve empowered ourselves to champion alongside our queer community. It goes beyond any fashion trend or marketable product.”
Within fashion, Syro is part of a new generation of shoe brands that offer inclusive sizes to an inclusive customer base—a kind of breakthrough that’s long overdue. While advocates and activists have brought incremental steps toward expanding clothing sizes, shoes have remained a sort of final frontier.
It turns out that it comes down to numbers: it’s more expensive to make bigger shoes than smaller ones, and many companies aren’t willing to invest in these increased production costs without a proven return. The case studies are, however, and labels like Han’s aren’t just deconstructing archaic gender lines and size norms—they’re doing so in an accessible way, ensuring that everyone who wants to participate is able to.
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Photo: Joey Whitley/Courtesy of SYRO
The average American woman is somewhere between an 8.5 and 9 in shoes, while for men, the average shoe size is thought to be around 10.5. This is widely reflected in retail, especially luxury: At Net-a-Porter, for example, a boot like the ones Syro creates can go up to 13 women’s in the US; the heels are not available on its male-focused site, Mr Porter, whose shoes are 15 for men.
But true inclusiveness goes beyond shoe size. It also extends to factors such as sole width and, for boots, calf width; the latter has recently been a major focus of the size-spanning community. As a result, wide-calf boots have become more common across retail—brands like Sam Edelman and Stuart Weitzman now offer boots in both wide and narrow widths—but they’re not yet an industry standard. And the shoe market remains extremely gender-normative, with heels of all-inclusive sizes (boot-gracing or not) that are quite difficult to find at mass multi-brand retailers. The exception, of course, is one Rick Owens, whose high platforms often reach the four-figure range.
The way we discuss shoe sizes is also systematically gendered: the way we talk about how big or small a shoe is cannot be separated from a binary understanding of the shape and size of “women’s” and “men’s” feet in generally.
Sadi Studios is a newly launched shoe brand that offers all shoe styles in US women’s sizes 5 to 16 and fits all bodies and gender expressions. It aims to curb unaffordable prices by adjusting its supply chain accordingly: Like Syro, it works with a family of factories in China that share the brand’s mission to accommodate a wide range of customers and experiences, which, as the brand explains, it allows for a more accessible price point under $300.
“With size-inclusive shoes, they get more expensive with every last shape, every heel, every sole mold you open,” says shoe design veteran Soyeon “Sarah” Ahn Ianni, who co-founded Sadi Studios with her husband, the business. developer Dominic Ianni, and previously cut his teeth at Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion. (Sizing specifications are dictated by the last of the shoe, or a mold carved out of wood or plastic that mimics a foot to give the shoe its shape.) “Leather wear is much greater with size 16 shoes. a woman’s compared to a woman’s size 5 shoes, so the supplier is like, ‘Are you going to pay more for this?’ And I don’t think that’s very fair. You shouldn’t have to pay more for your shoes just because you wear a bigger size.”
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Photo: Courtesy of Sadi Studios
To create her shoes, Sadi Studio’s Chinese manufacturing partners use a combination of leather and recycled plastic before shipping parts to the US for direct-to-consumer distribution. Beyond boots, the brand offers heels, sandals and more in a mix of candy-colored hues, and no shortage of embellishments. Her Jin heel – a piece made of shimmering Perspex and silk moire – is perfect for the wedding day. Both Sarah and Dominic say the brand’s block heels make for comfortable all-day wear.
“I wear one of the black boots every day,” says Dominic. “We want to add other styles that have more of an everyday function, as well as some really fun things like, ‘Okay, I’m going out. I really want to turn my head.”
Eventually, both Sarah and Dominic predict that inclusive shoe sizing will hit the mass market, if only because consumers will leave retailers with no other choice. Han, Syro’s co-founder, is also optimistic, arguing that as gender fluidity becomes more widely accepted in mainstream Western culture, it’s only a matter of time before existing commercial brands include inclusive sizing for all genders. (Han offers the example of Jeffrey Campbell.)
But before that happens, Dominic says brands like Sadi Studios need to prove they’re successful first, and that’s all part of the plan.
“We need people to respect what we’re doing, to make a name for ourselves in the industry. Then I feel like other brands will take notice and say, ‘This is something we have to offer,'” says Dominic. “And in the end, that’s what we want. We want this industry to change because it will be better for more people.”
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