Finding Your Size at Home
A simple paper and pen method to find your foot length in millimetres, and how to turn that number into the right EU size.
The hallway floor is cool underfoot on a Sunday evening, and the house has gone quiet. A sheet of A4 lies flat against the skirting board, held at the corners with two strips of masking tape. A pen sits nearby, along with a steel ruler borrowed from a drawer of odd keys and dead batteries. It is not an elegant scene, but it is the most reliable way to learn what size you really are.
Most of us carry a shoe size in our heads the way we carry a postcode, unchallenged and mostly inherited. It was given to us by a shop assistant years ago, or guessed from a pair that happened to feel acceptable. A few minutes with paper and a pen will replace that guess with a number you can trust.
What you need
Very little. A sheet of paper larger than your foot, a pen with a fine point, a hard ruler marked in millimetres, and a flat floor beside a straight wall. A tape measure will do at a push, though it tends to curl and wander.
Choose the evening if you can. Feet swell through the day, and by six o'clock they are at their fullest. Measuring then gives you the size that must be accommodated at the worst moment, which is the only size worth buying for.
Wear the socks you would normally wear with the shoes in question. A fine merino sock and a thick walking sock differ by more than most people expect.
Marking the foot
Tape the paper to the floor with one short edge touching the wall. Stand on it with your heel pressed lightly against the wall, and keep your weight evenly spread. Standing matters, because a foot at rest is shorter than a foot under load.
Ask someone to mark the paper at the tip of your longest toe, or do it yourself by leaning down with the pen held perfectly upright. A slanted pen adds a few millimetres of error, and a few millimetres is the difference you are trying to find. Make a clear dot rather than a line.
Step off and look at the page. The longest toe is the big toe on most people, though on a good many it is the second. Mark whichever one reaches furthest.
Measuring in millimetres
Draw a straight line from the dot across the paper, then measure from the edge that touched the wall to that line. Write the number down in millimetres, not centimetres, because the extra precision is the whole point. A reading of 268 is more useful than a rounded 27.
Repeat the exercise with the other foot. Almost everyone has one foot slightly longer than the other, often by three or four millimetres, and occasionally by more. Use the longer measurement, since a shoe can be adjusted to a smaller foot with an insole or a thicker sock, but it cannot be stretched in length.
Do the whole thing twice if you doubt your hand. If the two readings agree within a millimetre or two, you have your figure.
From millimetres to EU size
Here the arithmetic is gentler than it looks. Your foot is not the length of your shoe, because the shoe must leave room for the toes to move and for the foot to lengthen as you walk. Add an allowance of about 12 millimetres to your foot length, which is roughly the width of a thumb. For a close fitting dress shoe you might use 10, and for a trainer or a boot worn with heavy socks you might go to 15.
EU sizing is built on the Paris point, a unit of two thirds of a centimetre, or about 6.67 millimetres. To find your size, take the foot length plus the allowance and divide by 6.67. Multiplying by 0.15 gives almost the same answer and is easier to do on the back of the page.
- Foot length 268 mm, plus 12 mm, gives 280 mm. Multiplied by 0.15, that is size 42.
- Foot length 261 mm, plus 12 mm, gives 273 mm. Multiplied by 0.15, that is 40.95, so size 41.
- Foot length 275 mm, plus 12 mm, gives 287 mm. Multiplied by 0.15, that is 43.05, so size 43.
When the result lands between two sizes, say 42.4, round to the nearest half size if the maker offers one, and otherwise round up. A shoe that is a touch generous can be corrected with a tongue pad or a better sock. A shoe that is short can only be endured.
When the number and the shoe disagree
You will, sooner or later, put on a shoe in your calculated size and find it wrong. This is not a flaw in the method. A size is a label applied by a maker to a last, which is the wooden or plastic form the shoe is built around, and lasts vary between factories, countries and decades. An Italian loafer and a German trainer both marked 42 may differ by a centimetre in internal length.
For this reason, keep your millimetre figure and use it in place of the size wherever you can. Many reputable makers publish an internal length or a foot length chart for each model. Compare your number to theirs and ignore the printed size on the box.
Width deserves a word as well. The same method works sideways. Measure the broadest part of the foot across the ball, and treat any shoe that pinches there as too narrow, whatever its length. A correct length with a wrong width is the commonest cause of a shoe that looks right and feels like a punishment.
Keeping the record
Once you have your figures, write them somewhere permanent. A note on your phone is enough, with the date, both foot lengths in millimetres, and the allowance you prefer for each kind of shoe. Feet change slowly with age, weight and a long summer of walking, so repeat the exercise every year or two.
Fold the paper and keep it if you like. There is a small satisfaction in holding the outline of the thing you have been fitting blindly for decades.
A good shoe begins with an honest number, and the number begins on a sheet of paper against a wall.
Keep reading
- The Anatomy of a Well Made Loafer
- The Making of a Heel and Buckle Loafer
- What a Handmade Shoe Feels Like