I surfed around the net looking for pictures of boots for big calves or even small calves wearing boots. Didn’t find a single one but I did notice how a lot of dairy farmers in particular wore Wellington boots (galoshes or rain boots).  Perhaps the boots for big calves were a kind of rubber rain boot?

Then it dawned on me! Boots for big calves were boots for people with big calves, not big calves that needed boots! I almost swore off smoking spliffs right then and there but as a creative writer type, I need all the help I can get. What’s a few lost hours looking for boots for big calves on a farm when you need to produce edgy copy?

Once I had figured out what I was really looking for it was remarkably easy to find websites that specialised in boots for big calves and of course, that meant women with big calves. I found a plethora of web sites and they all featured very stylish, fashionable and surprisingly, given the extra amount of work and materials, affordable boots for big calves.

If you don’t have a tape measure, use a piece of string or even a belt, anything that will wrap around the calf. Then hold that against a ruler to get your  calf size. Boots for large calves require a fairly accurate measurement, otherwise you will have a foot that fits but you can’t get your leg into the boot!

In the old days, boots for large calves were made by orthopaedic footwear manufacturers and it was embarrassing for large calved ladies to shop for them. To get boots for large calves they had to find the orthopaedic footwear specialist and then hope they would be able to replicate the preferred style.

As you can imagine, in those days most of the boots for large calves made that way ended up looking as if they should have a metal brace around them and be used in the polio ward! Fortunately today women needing boots for large calves can find them quickly, comfortably and confidentially on the internet in minutes.

If anything I would hazard a guess that the increase in demand for wide fitting boots is world wide. The diet of western people in Europe, the UK, USA, Canada and Australia and New Zealand as well as some groups in South Africa is adding to the average size of each of us. We are taller than our grandparents and on average much larger, too.

It has only been in the past decade or so that manufacturers have admitted to increasing dress sizes. What used to be a 4 is today a 3 and so on. Part of the reason for this is vanity of course. However it doesn’t help when you are looking to buy wide fitting boots and all you can find are boots with narrow, or ‘regular’ calves.

Clothes can be let out or taken in but if you need a wide fitting boot then you have to buy it as it is, there is little room for adjustment.  Taking the narrow fitting boot to a bootmaker or cobbler and having them turn it into a wide fitting boot is time consuming and expense. Far better to surf the internet and find a supplier with the style and kind of wide fitting boot you want and buying it right, first time.