Shoe brands typically use the same number scale, but when you compare the actual size of shoes, the sizes are all over the place. Wouldn’t it make more sense to all agree on a set measurable size to make it easier on the customer to make a purchase?
Example: in US sizing, a 10.5 in one brand is the same as a 10 or an 11 in another brand.
In: 32
Sure. Whose brand gets to keep their standard as the universal one and which brands have to agree to change theirs to match their competitor’s standard?
Shoe sizes are measured in barlicorns. But it is not actually the shoe being measured but the last used to make the shoe. And while the last is shaped a bit like a foot it is usually much narrower and thinner. So the shoe size does not account much for the taper of the shoe. Different brands use different lasts and have different shapes to their shoes so the numbers turns out differently. Notice also that the US and UK use different numbers, even though both are in barlicorns.
Sorry to shatter your illusions, but shoe sizes are not necessarily the same inside a brand either. They can vary based on which factory and similar things, but even that does not mean so much…
My worst case was one morning not too many years ago (back when Adidas NMD was the hottest thing), I had queued in-front of a store. I bought two identical shoes in different colourways. The first fit like a glove, and I told the clerk I’d take the other without needing to try it on. He told me I ought to, and he was right. It deviated by a full size…
The real pro tip here is, check the Japanese sizing. That’s the cm length of the shoe. Then the only thing that can make a variance is the model, and the clerks will usually be able to help you with that. Some run slim, some are low, some are wide, etc. Who knows what you are!
People’s feet come in all different shapes. Some people have long skinny feet, some people have wide feet that spread out, some people have chunky feet shaped like bricks. Different shaped shoes are going to fit each shape of foot very differently. Each shoe company is defining what they consider is a “normal” foot, then scaling from there. The increments are the same between brands, but *you* with your unique feet, will find the fit different.
I thought I was 8.5 wide for a long time. Never felt quite ok with the size.
Tried Asics 10 regular size, damn it is so comfortable. So, I was undersizing by a full 1.5.
My adidas from Costco at size 10 fits like shit.
Nike downshifters are good but even 9.5 feel bad, I gotta try a size 10 Nike soon.
Welcome to the world of military logistics. Imagine finding that a cannon ball is too big or too small for Cannon A, but fits Cannon B perfectly. We don’t often appreciate how much effort it took to make most things uniform and how that is really an automated process and whenever you have humans making things the tolerances are going to be shockingly large.
I feel like OP is not a woman, as this is the case with every item of women’s clothing. Within the same shop a size 12 on one rack can be completely different to the size 12 on the next rack. Part of the issue is the numbers being purely ambiguous.
Even things which are meant to be a measurement – like bra sizes are hit and miss.
https://medium.com/sizolution/a-brief-history-of-sizing-systems-aee6bd066834
“In 1958, the now-famous sizing system with numbers ranging from 8 to 42 was created. These were in fact arbitrary numbers”
Source: My wife was a quality assurance expert for some shoe factories in Mexico.
The thing that I think a lot of people believe is that, when they’re buying a particular brand, they’re buying a fully in-house product, from the design to the manufacture. This isn’t true. In reality, lots of different shoe designers, who make their money by holding the patents on shoe designs, contract with brands and factories to actually make the shoes. The industry standards that determine the minimum durability and such don’t really broach the topic of size, namely because sizing is a very inaccurate way to determine whether a shoe matches a particular foot type. It’s more of a consumer-driven heuristic, and as long as you’re within one size up or down on that scale, it’s considered accurate enough.
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