Talk:Shoe size

Trying to demystify shoe sizes
Athletic brands generally follow an athletic scale, which isn't shown in any if the charts on this wiki. Non athletic shoes generally follow the scale more commonly seen. (I'm speaking from the US)

So that's two systems, now for the fun part. Now, you must figure out what amount of "wiggle room" the manufacturer uses. Nominally it is about 1.5 cm or 3/4 of an inch for a good fit, or smaller due to personal preference. Some manufacturers use 1 cm and some I've seen use zero wiggle room. The cm size you see in modern shoes is what size foot in cm that shoe is made for. But not knowing the wiggle room, that number is as equally meaningless as the other size numbers. Wiggle room has more to do with people saying how shoe "runs" "big" or "small" than anything else. The size scales are pretty much standardized, and there are only two major ones in use.

The chart image near the bottom is correct for the non-athletic us mens scale. How it lines up vs cm from chart to chart will always differ because it would be based on a certain amount of wiggle room in a particular manufacturer. Not knowing what wiggle room is assumed or what manufacturer the chart came from, the size number will not agree.

Sometimes a brand changes or uses different factories in different parts of the world, and of which each factory uses/used it's own wiggle room factor. So wiggle room - thus how they "run" can be entirely different for even the same shoe depending on vintage and where it's made. 76.19.5.215 (talk) 18:37, 11 August 2018 (UTC)


 * US athletic sizes were deleted from this article in 2010 because there were no references to any standard or specification.
 * Sport shoe manufacturers are actually using Mondopoint since 1980s, even though they continue to mark their footwear with US/UK and EU sizes. There could be some deviation in last size and width, resulting in a different fit for the same foot length and width, but this is described right in the overview section Shoe size - I can't see how this could be further improved without introducing some major confusion. Dmitry (talk•contibs) 01:32, 16 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Actually in the previous (largely incorrect) version of shoe size conversion chart, "US athletic" sizes were aligned exactly on Mondopoint boundaries, so I assume it was some manufacturer-specific version of Mondopoint, like the ASICS system for kids ASICS - Shoe Size Guide" which remaps Mondopoint sizes from 170 to 195 mm as grades from K10 to K13, and sizes from 200 to 255 mm as custom sizes 1, 1.5, ..., 7. --Dmitry (talk•contibs) 22:22, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

'Foot versus shoe and last' clarification
By 'last length' are we talking stick length of bottom length of the last? There is also quite a bit of confusion around foot and last length. Most brands / shoemakers provide a 'cm' column within their size chart. This is generally understood to be the last length; however, some shoemakers provide foot measurements to allow customers to measure and size accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimba the hut (talk • contribs) 31 August 2021 14:36 (UTC)


 * Who knows, ISO/TS 19407:2015 "Footwear - Sizing - Conversion of sizing systems" specification defines no procedure for measurement of last length. ISO TC 137 also released ISO/TS 19408:2015 "Footwear - Sizing - Vocabulary and terminology" specification, and they are currently preparing ISO/TS 19409 "Footwear - Sizing - Measurement of last dimensions" and ISO/TS 19410 "Footwear - Sizing - Inshoe measurement" specifications", but these are currently at the draft stage. --Dmitry (talk•contibs) 23:27, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Contradiction in ISO 19407 and shoe size conversion
The final section Size Conversion has the sentence. Converted values are rounded to a larger shoe size to increase comfort. Yet the tables listed do not consistently carry this out for inexact conversions.

Karl (talk) 10:39, 5 February 2022 (UTC)


 * First of all, ISO/TS 19407 actually assumes that US adult and US children's sizes should be shifted $1/4$ barleycorn or 1/12 in comparing to the UK sizes, but in practice adult sizes are actually shifted by 1 barleycorn (i.e. 1 full size). I have therefore updated the US/Brannock tables and formulas, so finally all the numbers came along quite nicely and I could finish my hand-coded new visual conversion chart, which I've been working on for quite some time.


 * Secondly, ISO/TS 19407 assumes that shoe sizes are centered  on their respective foot length in mm, and each size can also accomodate length variations up to a half-step in each system (i.e. ±2.5 mm, ±3.33 mm, ±3.75 mm, ±4.23 mm respectively for Mondopoint 5 mm, European, Mondopoint 7.5 mm, and UK/US systems). Therefore half-sizes in EU and UK/US scales are actually overlapping with full sizes, so it's not about rounding up to a next size boundary (as in Mondopoint) but rather about using vertical ruler to find matching full- or half-sizes which are nearest to the centerline.


 * With that consideration in mind, I find that the ISO/TS 19407 adult size conversion tables do align pretty well with my new conversion chart. --Dmitry (talk•contibs) 23:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Fractional half-sizes
There is no need to use natural fractions for half-sizes in the conversion tables, it complicates page search even if they look prettier. Product labels always use decimal points anyway.

Indicating natural fractions makes sense for foot/last sizes and Pariser point sizes which make an rational number when converted to millimeters, requiring an apporixmation or repeating decimal notation. --95.29.161.205 (talk) 22:17, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Uncited and dubious claim that a person with a twelve inch foot takes a size 12 shoe.
I have tagged shoe size as uncited and tagged specifically as dubious the claim This is the basis for current UK and North American shoe sizes, with the largest shoe size taken as twelve inches (a size 12). (Straight away, a US 12 is smaller than a UK 12.) The article foot (unit) says 13 (UK), 14 (US male), 15.5 (US female) or 48 (EU sizing). (It was uncited until I added the citation below).

Strongly disliking drive-by tagging, I searched the web for an accurate ratio between length and size: the best I found (in terms of clear explanation of derivation and the algorithms) was this: Unfortunately, todayifoundout.com is identified by the Unreliable/Predatory Source Detector as "generally unreliable". That does not assert that this particular citation cannot be used, but a better one should be sought.
 * (12×3=36. US(m): 36−22=14, UK: 36−23=13, EU:30.5×1.5=45.75 then +2 "for comfort" plus rounding = 48)

Meanwhile, can it be used to correct the existing uncited and dubious assertion? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I have made this change to the article: it is better to have a "good enough" citation rather than let uncited speculation stand. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)