Shoe sizing differences

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SteveC83

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#237659 12-Jun-2018 07:50

Maybe this is an old thing I've just picked up on but wondering if anyone else has noticed.

I'm trying to buy a new pair of football boots. I have a pair of Nikes size 7.5UK and marked as EU42.

I try on a pair of size 8UK Adidas - Also marked EU42.

Mizuno label a 7.5UK an EU 41, New Balance label a 7.5UK a EU 41.5!

So 3 different companies mark 7.5UK a 41, 41.5 and a 42 EU. Nike and Adidas recon a 7.5 and 8 are both EU42 - whos correct?

Is there no standard measurement for shoes/boots? Is this like the whole womens' clothing issues brought up a few years ago where one shops size 10 is another shops size 14?

Geektastic

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#2034080 12-Jun-2018 08:07

Yes.

Shoe sizes for gentleman's shoes of the better sort (Churches, Loakes, Trickers, Crockett & Jones etc) are usually correctly sized according to traditional UK measurements.

Trainers, now made all over the world, seem to have almost no consistency. I wear a size 10 in the sort of shoes I mentioned above and as big as a size 12 in some makes of trainer. Football boots I have not owned since I was 13 years old, but I imagine they suffer from exactly the same lack of rigour.

sbiddle

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#2034082 12-Jun-2018 08:14

No there isn't. Sizing translations between EU/UK/US sizing seems to vary slightly between brands.

Having said that the whole shoe market doesn't seem to have any standards either - just look at the same size shoes between different brands even if you're sticking to standard sizing such as US.

SteveC83

33 posts

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#2034083 12-Jun-2018 08:16

Geektastic:

Yes.

Shoe sizes for gentleman's shoes of the better sort (Churches, Loakes, Trickers, Crockett & Jones etc) are usually correctly sized according to traditional UK measurements.

Trainers, now made all over the world, seem to have almost no consistency. I wear a size 10 in the sort of shoes I mentioned above and as big as a size 12 in some makes of trainer. Football boots I have not owned since I was 13 years old, but I imagine they suffer from exactly the same lack of rigour.

I find it strange that they're labelled differently.

I get that some brands will fit wider/narrower or a touch longer/shorter than each other but for 2 or 3 companies to claim the same UK/US size is a different EU size is stupid!!

Played Ice Hockey for the last 15 years and was able to get skates made from a trace of my foot and couple photos (and not pay any more than off the shelf skates) - comfier than any shoes I've ever owned!

Oblivian

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#2034123 12-Jun-2018 08:43

Don't get me started. I no longer know my 'true' size. As I've been in 42-44EU (bike shoes on the higher side yet still fitting!)

9.5-11 in normals

Tried on ice skates, and woah, need to go 1.5-2 sizes smaller

NorthernZone

69 posts

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#2034127 12-Jun-2018 08:52

Not surprisingly China cites UK/EU/US sizes but the shoe merchants on AliExpress know full well that the China sizes are in reality very different from the international standards and so they all urge customers to measure their foot size and order by that instead. I have now done so on several occasions without any problem.

jpoc

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#2034188 12-Jun-2018 10:05

There are standards, in fact there is an ISO standard that covers all of the various national standards and sets out all of the conversion equivalents.

When shoe markets were effectively geo locked that all worked well but then globalisation jumped in and we have the current mess.

From the comments above, it is clear that many people here are not aware that UK and US shoe sizes are different. A UK men's 10 may be a US 11 or 12.

That leads to confusion with Euro sizes too as some US companies are not aware that there is a difference and they take their US size 10 and look it up on a UK/Euro scale and label it as a 44 when it really is 43. When I last checked, a US designed Nike 44 was the same size as a German designed Addidas 43.

Then the Chinese came into the picture and they make shoes that are a lot narrower than we would expect. Many Chinese companies have no concept of width sizes as a separate measure. I once saw a pair of shoes in an Auckland store and I tried on the size 10 expecting it to be a US 10 and thus right for me. The shoe was the expected length but way too narrow. I looked at the next couple of sizes and saw that 10, 11 and 12 were all exactly the same length - the soles were the same length - but they were wider and I ended up buying the 12.

It is a mess and you have to regard quoted sizes as only being approximations. Many online stores now solicit comments from customers as to whether the shoe was the expected size, or bigger or smaller.

wratterus

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#2034214 12-Jun-2018 10:46

Shoe sizing does my head in.

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da5id

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#2034240 12-Jun-2018 10:59

Yeh, my size is somewhere between 11 and 12, but you really need to try them on to see if it fits. The width can throw you out as well as my feet are pretty wide and I don't think they account for that measurement a lot of the time.

fizzychicken

313 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2034252 12-Jun-2018 11:17

For trainers Im a US14, but for new balance can easily fit a US13. In my experience once you go over uk12.5 and into the range of 'clown shoes', the length stops being an issue as the problem is in the width....some manufacturers assume if your feet are long then they must also be super fat. I tend to aim big and if its too big then I just put a pair of odereaters in there to create padding. I still buy the majority of my clothing and footwear from the UK as I find a better level of sizing consistency and options there....not just S M L XL in everything.

https://keybase.io/fizzychicken

Batman

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#2034420 12-Jun-2018 14:00

There must be a reason behind this randomness.

Everybody's foot is slightly different - they are 3D structures.

Length, width, arch/height, is only the begining. The entire 3D volume/mould is very different.

Hence every shoe brand and model have a slightly different 3D volume/mould, not just absolute length.

Oblivian

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#2034603 12-Jun-2018 20:29

They also come with multiple lacing methods (and eyelets) to compensate for different size bridges and so on. But they don't sell you that when you shop!