Or at least, a baseline.
My body aches.
A lot of people don’t understand how physically taxing it can be as a Bootmaker. Particularly in the lasting process, where body weight is sometimes used for extra leverage, or when hand stitching outsoles, pushing an awl over and over again through 5mm veg tan.
I can assure you, after that workout I’ll go to sleep and wake up the next morning with DOMS, as if I’d done shoulder day at the gym.
This week, something caught my eye in the world of BootTube, where I saw a video about sizing. In particular why people shouldn’t use their sneaker size as a reference to buy boots.
And I’m not sure I fully agree.
Outstation uses sneaker size as a reference.
My own brand advocates customers using their sneaker size as a base for their boot sizing.
Look, I get it. Sneakers come in all shapes and sizes. One sneaker brand may have completely different sizing to another.
So why do I insist on asking my customers to use sneaker size as reference for their boots?
Simple.
My customers are not footwear enthusiasts.
They don’t know what a D, E or EE fit is. They (generally) don’t own multiple brands of boots to use as a size reference. They barely know what their instep is.
I used to the be the same. I could never get loafers to fit me, so after many years of buying them, I gave up. Only after I started making boots I realised, it was because of my low instep.
Anyway, back to my customers.
When they go to the store to buy shoes, typically the process is to simply point at a pair they like and say, ‘I’ll try that one, in a 44’. They know their basic size, and that’s about the extent of their own foot awareness.
So, once again I reiterate, my customers are ‘normal people’. As I was in the past, so I completely understand how they think.
Footwear retailers tend to have no idea either.
This is another problem that doesn’t help the situation.
Remember, most footwear in this part of the world is relatively low priced. The retail outlets that sell them, also don’t specialize in footwear.
Within a department store chain, the footwear section consists of many footwear brands grouped together, or if a single branded store, the footwear line exists because the brand simply can.
As a result, regardless of where they’re sold, the salespeople are just that. Salespeople. They’re not trained in how to properly fit footwear.
Their job is to get shoe boxes, say the shoes look good on feet, and then push for a sale, often receiving a commission.
And it’s not their fault. At the USD 40 price point that most footwear is sold at, it doesn’t make sense to spend 30 minutes measuring, discussing and finding a particular shoe that fits a customer, let alone the retailers spending time to train a salesperson properly.
Try it on and poke around the toebox.
I roll my eyes at this. Then wince.
Boot nerds, you’ll already know that poking around at the toe has zero correlation of whether a boot properly fits. In fact, it only destroys the toebox, particularly if the toe puff is leather rather than a celastic.
Good fit is determined by the foot length between the ball and the heel. And whether the ball width of the customer’s foot locks into the ball width of the boot.
I always ask my customers, do they know why a clown can wear such ridiculously long clown shoes?
And of course they don’t. Much as I didn’t previously.
The reason why a clown can wear his or her clown shoes is because of the heel to ball fit. It has nothing to do with the enormous amount of room at the toes.
He or she can wear their shoes but still walk around just fine. A bit like wearing flippers when going diving.
Toebox space has nothing to do with fit. It has more to do with comfort, because some people prefer more room or less room for their toes.
But that’s also a moot point, as a toebox can change depending on boot style.
Anyway, my point is, because of the limited amount of proper footwear retailers in this part of the world, the market misconception (or misunderstanding) about size and fit, is really quite terrible.
Don’t get me started on Brannock size.
Brannock is great. A standardised length and width measurement for the whole world. That is, assuming it exists.
If I ask someone in Malaysia what their Brannock size is, they’ll look at me as if I have two heads.
‘Bran-nock? Isn’t that like some kind of breakfast cereal?’
‘No, that’s oatbran’.
Brannock devices simply don’t exist in this market.
Limited high quality footwear, leads to lower quality footwear retailers, which limits the number of trained people that measure, fit and educate customers correctly.
So a sneaker size baseline is just fine.
If you’re from a matured footwear market and happily reading along, now you should understand my perspective on sizing.
And why I don’t really agree with BootTubers arguing that sneaker size shouldn’t be used as a sizing reference for boots.
It’s simply a case of what the customer base is familiar with, which is a function of the market.
I know that the sneaker size a customer tells me is likely not going to be a perfect fit, but it’s good enough. It gives me a ballpark of where to start when they come to try on boots.
The Malaysian footwear market is a physical market.
In my part of the world, the majority of people don’t like to buy footwear online. Even more so at my ‘higher’ price point.
The lack of foot awareness, the fear of being scammed, as well as a natural risk aversion for incorrect sizing, means that people prefer to come and try boots in person.
So it actually has no practical relevance for them to know their Brannock size. Instead it’s simply better to just come to the workshop, try on a few sizes and see what fits.
This is completely the opposite in a more matured boot market, where people buy their boots online because of their (relatively higher) existing knowledge and awareness of their feet.
No fit is perfect anyway.
Another reason why I’m not too fussed with sizing references is because unless something is being made bespoke, no fit will ever be perfect.
In fact, I’m a strong believer of just getting something that fits as well as possible off the shelf then tweaking it with lacing, heel or tongue pads, insoles, shoe stretchers and the like.
These tricks are completely unknown in Malaysia. So when I show them to customers, they are somewhat astounded that such products or methods even exist.
Even the fact that feet aren’t symmetrical is a surprise for the average person.
I mean, of course they know that no body part is perfectly symmetrical, but don’t really realise what this means until I show them pictures of Outstation boots that have changed over time.
When they see that the right and left boots can be wildly different in shape after wear, does the asymmetry of their own feet really hit home.
The Everyday last is ‘relatively’ sneaker shaped.
Yes, yes I know, all sneakers are different.
But I’m talking about on average, based on all the boots I’ve made for people, when they try their ‘sneaker size’ in the Everyday line, it generally fits pretty well.
So purely from my data, this is good enough for me to tell people use their sneaker size when trying on a pair of Outstation boots.
Again, it just gives a baseline of where to start. That’s all.
The technical details.
Time to nerd out, boot nerds.
I like to size my lasts using European sizing, which are graded in Paris Point. That is, a difference of 6.67mm in length and 4.5mm in ball girth between each whole size. At the ball width (insole), there is a 1.5mm width difference between sizes.
To me, Paris Point is more user friendly.
Because of the smaller increment between whole sizes (6.67mm vs 8.46mm in UK or US sizing), more whole sizes fit into a given length.
On top of this, the same sizing system can be used for women and men. I don’t need to maintain multiple gradings depending on the sex of the wearer. And since my boots are unisex anyway, this aligns perfectly.
If you’re a man, take a 43. But if you’re a (proportionately smaller) women, take a 38. Maybe you’re a man with a smaller than average foot, then you can also take a 38.
Of course, there are downsides too.
Namely, width. This is what the US and UK systems are great for. A standardised width measurement. D, E, EE and the like. For simplicity let’s just pretend that the UK also uses the same letters as the US ok…
Anyway. As far as I’m aware, standardised widths don’t feature in the Paris Point system. Instead, I have to know my lasts well enough to guesstimate if they’d be a D or E width in a comparable US or UK sizing system.
The half sizing system of US and UK systems is also great, particularly where people are very sensitive to incremental changes in size. A 4.23mm difference in length between half sizes can make a difference for some people.
Actually no, that’s not true. Because some brands use half sizes not to change length, but rather, width. i.e. From D to E.
Throw a rock and hit a size.
That’s pretty much my philosophy when it comes to sizing.
Where the rock lands is the starting point. Then size up or down accordingly until the right fit is found.
Interestingly, I often wonder whether I should convert my European sizing to US sizing, especially when penetrating into the US market.
It would mean that I need to relabel all of my sizes, converting from the European sizing in Paris Point into US sizes. As there’s not a direct conversion ratio it means I could end up having some full US sizes and some half US sizes.
It wouldn’t be a clean translation. An incomplete range of sizes, so to speak.
The other way to do it is to get all my lasts remade to US sizing.
That, I definitely don’t want to do anytime soon. Not just because of the capex needed to redevelop and manufacture a new set of lasts, but it also means that my boot patterns must be re-graded and re-tested again.
Not to mention, all the test boots needing to be re-built.
Eh. I don’t really want to think about this right now. So I won’t.
Seeya.
