The shoe width is one of the most crucial measurement points for shoe fitting.

In the part “Why my shoes don’t fit? (Part 7)” we have talked about the Mondopoint-System and that it’s the only system, which is taken the foot length and not the shoe-last length in consideration. In my opinion, even a simpler metric system would be helpful. At the moment we still need conversion tables to detect our shoe size and shoe width.

For a good shoe fitting, of course the shoe width is very important. In the UK the shoe width is been measured around the joints of foot and marked in characters like “C”,”D”or”E”.  The smallest character stands for the slim width, like “F” is a slimmer fitting than “G”.

In the US many vendors are measuring only the width of the feet, similar to the Mondopoint and they use different characters like EEE is wider than EE.  It’s certainly more precise to measure all around the joints.

This are the only information the shoe industry is providing to us about their products – shoe size and sometimes the shoe width. In 99% the shoe width not marked in the shoe itself, mainly it’s somewhere printed on the shoe box.

Online shops have started to mention the shoe width in the product descriptions and often we read  ” …shoe fitting is tight, please order one size up”.  I will certainly not order such a shoe at all, but what else choice do they have? They are facing the same problems like us.

There are no absolute standards for shoe size conversions. Barleycorn-system or Paris Point are complicated and all about shoe last length – not about our foot.

This sounds not too promising at all, but by determining your feet length and width you gather very important information and I will show you how to make the most of it.

We have discussed, that shoe sizes and shoe width are related to the shoe lasts and now in the end of this series, I will explain to you, how you can relate your feet measurements to shoe lasts.

My advice:

More to come in the foot measurement of this series or you can also download the http://www.agleathers.com/book-2/free shoe guide with measurement instructions.

Andre Gerdes ( shoe size user )