Check
Measure your foot
The length and width of each of your own feet, in numbers, so that a size chart becomes a comparison rather than a guess. This is the only figure in the entire transaction that you control, and it costs two minutes.
What you need (5)
- A sheet of paper larger than your foot, and a hard floor
- A pencil held upright, not angled
- A ruler or tape marked in millimeters
- A wall to put the paper against
- The manufacturer’s size chart, open in another window
6 steps
Do this later in the day
Feet are commonly larger in the evening than first thing in the morning. Measuring at the end of the day gives you the larger of your two numbers, which is the more useful one when you are comparing against a chart. If you measure in the morning, note that you did.
Put the paper against the wall and stand on it
Heel against the wall, weight on the foot. Standing matters: a foot under load spreads, and a foot held in the air does not. Wear the sock you would wear with the shoe, because a thick sock is worth a few millimeters and a chart will not know about it.
Draw around the foot with the pencil upright
Hold the pencil vertical, not tilted outward. A tilted pencil adds a few millimeters all the way round and those millimeters are exactly the ones you are trying to resolve. Take your time at the widest part and at the longest toe, which is not always the big toe.
Measure length from the heel line to the longest point
Measure the straight-line distance, not along the curve of the outline. Write the number down in millimeters. Round up rather than down, because a chart that puts you between two sizes will not thank you for optimism.
Measure width across the widest part
Find the widest points on either side of the outline, usually across the ball of the foot, and measure straight across. Write that number down too. This is the number that almost no listing in this catalog will give you anything to compare against.
Do the other foot, and keep both numbers
Feet commonly differ from each other, and the difference is often several millimeters. Keep both numbers and use the larger of the two when reading a chart. Then go to the manufacturer’s chart rather than a generic conversion table, because sizing is not aligned between makers.
Two minutes with a pencil produces the only number in this transaction that nobody sold you.
What it tells you (4)
- Two numbers per foot that you can hold against any manufacturer’s size chart.
- Which of your feet is the larger, and by roughly how much.
- Whether a listing’s width word has anything at all to be compared against, which in this catalog it does not.
- Whether you are between sizes on a particular chart, which is worth knowing before rather than after.
What it does not tell you (4)
- Nothing about your health. A foot outline is a shape, and this site draws no conclusion of any kind from it.
- Nothing about what shape of shoe suits you, which is not a question a ruler answers.
- Nothing about how a particular last is built, since two shoes of the same stated size can differ.
- Nothing about a listing that gives no width figure, which is every listing in this catalog.
Claim words this bears on (3)
- Wide and extra wide — Width designations are a long-standing trade convention rather than a regulated system, and they vary between makers. Not one listing in this catalog gives a numerical width.
- Arch support — No standards body, trade association or regulator publishes a definition of arch support for footwear, and no listing in this catalog gives it a shape, a height or a test.
- Barefoot and ground feel — Barefoot, minimalist and ground feel have no published definition and no threshold. No body says how thin a sole must be to earn any of them, and no listing in this catalog gives a stack height.