Why My Shoes Don't Fit? by Andre Gerdes - HTML preview

1.  Introduction

This book has been written for all of you, who are asking themselves

"Why my shoes don't fit?"

My name is Andre Gerdes and I'm a professional shoe- and leather technician from Germany, Managing Director of Andre Gerdes Leathers Pvt. Ltd., with more than two decades of experience.

While working with shoes for such a long time, I've realized, that there is a lot of confusions when it comes to shoe sizes and fittings.

The Internet and magazines are full with the latest shoe trends and fashions. On the other side, valid information's about shoe fittings are much more difficult to find.

Wrong-fitted shoes can cause serious damages to your feet and I'm not talking here about just wearing high heels, which you might enjoy wearing for few hours at a party or for a concert, I'm talking about none-fitting shoes, which we are wearing on daily use.

We are walking in shoes, which are too small, wide, short or long - you name it. Now why is that? There are two main reasons for it.

First, the shoe industry is not giving us enough product information about the shoes. They are providing us with some information about the material with a sticker inside the shoe, it looks like this one:

The label above means, that the upper material is leather, the lining is leather and the sole is synthetic. These are only very basic information's provided to us.

The industry tells us nothing about the kind of leather been used. Is it a kid-, sheep- or cow- leather, etc.?  In my opinion, the only information "its leather or it's synthetic", is not sufficient. I like to know, if I'm buying a pig skin leather shoe or some plastic and it's getting worse, when it comes to shoe sizes.

Do you have any idea what a shoe-size means? Let's say, you think, that you have a shoe- size "8". Now first of all, "8" in US is different to "8" in the UK. You might be aware of that that coincidence already, but what does a size "8" stands for? Does it mean this shoe is 8 inch long or your feet should be 8 inch long to get the perfect fitting for this shoe? Sorry, "none of that" is the correct answer.

Sometimes you'll find information's for the shoe-width on the internet, but most of the times it's not even stamped into the shoe, more often you'll be able to detect the shoe-width on the shoe box. Why is shoe-sizes or shoe-width named after numbers and characters, which are making no sense to the customer?

This little book is trying to bring in some light to the darkness of this numbering jungle.

Another reason is, why so many of us having trouble to find a pair of suitable shoes, because we are having too little knowledge about our own two feet. Do you know how long your feet are? Did you know that almost 70 % of adults are not having identical feet and that your foot measurements are changing while aging? Don't worry, we are not doing an examination for every bone off your foot, but you should discover for yourself a few things about your own foot and we need to clarify some differences with the common shoe sizing systems.

It took me quite some time to write this little book, actually much more, than I have expected. Still, I feel it's far away from being perfect and I had to decide, how much information goes in and what has to be left out. May be in future, I will upgrade the book by adding more stuff into it.

Finally, I like to mention, that this book is not a guide for shoe-making or shoe-designing.

I hope, you'll enjoy the reading and find the answer to the question:

"Why my shoes don't fit?"

Best wishes

Andre Gerdes

Shoe fitting - Why my shoes don't fit? (Part 1)

"Why my shoes don't fit?" Why is shoe fitting not so easy like to choose a small, medium, large or extra-large shoe?

Why so many people having trouble with their shoes?  I'm a shoe-technician and listening very often these questions. "My size is 8 and the shoe doesn't fit, so I go for 8 1/2 and it's not really better and if I take than a size 9 my foot slips out of the shoe".

I will try to explain why you have trouble to find the best footwear for you and why a proper shoe fitting is important. After these articles, you should have a better idea how to choose your shoes in future!

Let’s get started:  Why my shoes don't fit? It's not so easy to answer, because there are many reasons for it. Almost everybody believes that shoe fitting has to do with the shoe sizes and the shoe length. Well, yes of course it has also to do with shoe sizes, but not only and certainly it has not really much to do with the actual length of the shoe, except if you might you have picked up a size 6 instead of a 9 size, in this case it's obvious why your shoe can't fit.

"It s not the length?” I haven t said that, length is important, but the length of the shoes isn't - in most cases, look like these:

Fig. 34 shows the shoe of the unfortunate Duke Montgomery, a victim of the relentless animosity of Richelieu. It is of black leather, with a large red heel, and entirely covered with ornaments; tradition says it was gathered on the scaffold. Fig. 35 represents a highly ornamented lady's shoe of this period. Awhile Fig. 36 is a shoe worn during the Regency.

The heel is very high and not unlike a barber's wig-stand; the front, however, is rather graceful in shape

Let's try to look at it from a different view. How would you describe to an alien: "what is a shoe?"

Most of us would start like ... a shoe is something which has to protect your feet...A good start, but than your shoes might look like this:

Industry, safety boot with steel-toe-cap and steel-midplate. We have developed this boot a few years back and sold it also quite well, but I'm doubt full, that we are looking here for these!

So, it's not about protection alone and it's not about shoe length, than what makes it a great fit for you?

If we would like to understand and solve our footwear problems for once and all, we need to look a little bit deeper into two important subjects:

1.  What really is a shoe (and what not!) and how shoes are actually developed

2.  What type of foot do you have?

In this book you find some valid information's and introductions. This article series is for everyone, easy to understand and will hopefully give you a good feeling for quality and fashionable shoes, as well it will help you to understand your own foot better, which is very important for you to avoid serious diseases like bunions or Morton-toe.

Shoe components - Why my shoes don't fit? (Part 2)

In the first part of "Why my shoes don't fit", we've discussed, that if we want to understand our footwear problems we require some better ideas of what is a shoe and how it is related to our foot. Before we start our foot observations, we’ll have a look on the important parts of a shoe – the shoe components.

Have a look at the picture, which shows the most important shoe components. The blue color shoe components are not visible from outside. You really don't need to study them; it's just for your reference.

Of course, you’ll make a good impression in a shoe store, if you talk like "I don't like the decoration stitching in the quarter", instead of "...the stitching on the side" or "the vamp seems to be rather short looking" instead "the front of the shoe looks..." - sometimes the sales guys are not having a simple job to do.

Now, let's continue with the question, what is a shoe? Easy, we simply google for

"Shoe", check with Wikipedia and getting following explanation for us:

"A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot while doing various activities. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function. Additionally fashion has often dictated many design elements, such as whether shoes have very high heels or flat ones...etc."

That's my be really interesting for our alien, but certainly it has no meaning to us, because the only answer for what a shoe is and not what it is doing or looking like, is this:

A shoe is an item, using different shoe components, where the upper part is lasted (pulled) over a shoe last and a sole is attached/stitched to it.

Point, that's it. Was not that complicated, isn't It.?

Okay, we have not spoken about a shoe last yet, but no problem, this is how a shoe last looks like.

Now what a shoe last is and why it has such an important role for shoe making we will leave for the next part.

Shoe last - Why my shoes don't fit? (Part 3)

In Part 2 of this series, we have concluded that a shoe is an item, where the upper part is lasted (pulled) over a shoe last and a sole is attached/stitched to it.

It seems, that there is lot of importance for a shoe last in shoe making, so let's try it again and google for shoe last, we go again to Wikipedia and let's see what comes up this time:

"A last is a form in the approximate shape of a human foot, used by shoemakers and cordwainers in the manufacture and repair of shoes. Lasts typically come in pairs, and throughout their history have been made from many materials, including hardwoods, cast iron, and, more recently, high density plastics...etc."

Not bad, at least better than the shoe explanation, except for "Lasts typically come in pairs", well explained, we need a right and a left one! Okay, let's come over this, but what is here of more importance to us is this:

"...a form in the approximate shape of a human foot..."

Now if we look at our picture above, can you see the approximate shape of a human foot? With lots of fantasy may be, anyhow the description "approximate" is quite stretch-able like 10%, 40% or 80% looks like a human foot - sounds a bit strange to me.

I prefer this definition for shoe last:

A shoe last is an item, which gives a shoe its shape, form and represents certain measurements of a human foot.

This means, if the measurement points from the last, which have been used for your shoe, don't represent the same measurements like from your foot, your shoe won't fit.

Now, if this sounds a bit strange to you, may be you just have in mind that so far nobody from your favorite brand hasn’t spoken to you about your feet keep on reading, we come to this later. Fact is, if the measurement points are not representing your foot, the shoe can't fit.

To make this a little bit simpler, let's have a look at this picture:

Three points on top of the last have to represent the measurement from your feet. This three points are called: 1.) Instep 2.) Waist and 3.) Joint; and here they are on your foot: J = Joint Measurement, I = Waist Measurement and H = Instep Measurement  (you can call it also short Heel). For completion of this picture A = Ankle- and C = Calf Measurements, which are important for boots only and we are leaving at site for now.

These three points, Instep, Waist and Joint have to be identical on your foot and from the shoe last.

Now there is something more to come and that is the bottom of the last which represents the surface of your foot on the insole of your shoe.

Shoe Insole - Why my shoes don't fit? (Part 4)

The shoe insole must represent certain points on the foot surface.

In the previous part, we have learned that the shoe last has to represent three certain measurement points - joint, waist and instep - from your foot, only than a shoe can comfortably fit on your foot.

These three points are representing parts of the volume from your foot, but the shoe insole is presenting the width and length of your feet. Let’s have a close look to the bottom profile of the shoe last.

The blue line is our shoe insole and the vertical purple lines are representing important points of the insole. Before I'll explain this, let's put some spice into this theory; let’s have a look at the next picture below, we are adding here our foot profile as well.

For our right foot we have taken the outer line (in green) and the foot surface of our foot (dotted line) and I have inserted another line in red, the joint-line.

I don't want to be too technical at this point, like why is been done something and how? Still we can do some simple observations.

First, if you remember in the first part of the series, I have told you, that the actual length of the shoe is not really important for the fitting and here you can see why.

On every shoe last some extra allowance is been added on the toe. How much, that depends on the style and design of the shoe - in this case it's almost 25 mm. The minimum allowance to a shoe should be at least 10 mm. Now, lets asume this shoe would have only a toe allowance of 10 mm, the toe shape would look certainly different, but the shoe would still fit. But, if your foot is too long or too short, than all the important lines of the insole profile would lie on the wrong positions and will not match with your foot - the shoe can't fit under any circumstances.

Let's have a look at the inside and outside joints of the foot. (For clarification, these are the big bones on our foot, just behind the toes. In this picture the outside joint is not so prominent, don't mind it. ) The outside line of the foot is of no concern to us here, but it's the inside line, the surface of the foot (the dotted line), which matters here most.

As you can see, the insole (blue line) is touching the joints exactly, inside and outside, demonstrated by the new line I have added, the joint-line. Now this is very important for our shoe fitting.

The joint-line must connect the inside and outside joints of our foot.

If the joint-line would be too long and the joints would be outside of the insole, it would compress our foot into the shoe. On the other hand, would the joint-line be too short and wouldn't touch the insole, the foot would slip forwards and the toes would bend for grip, which would give a very uncomfortable feeling while walking.

Finally, lets have a look at the mid- toe- line. It's very crucial for a comfortable shoe fit, that the big toe is located inside of the insole. The reason for this is, while walking,  you are pressing your weight to the front surface of your foot and the big toe will bend to the outside by an average of 3-4 mm - with high heels even more. If there is no space in the shoe for the big toe to expend, it will get compressed to the inside of the shoe and this again will course lots of stress for the foot.

In our picture above, I'm not too happy with the insole shape; it should leave some more extra room for the big toe.

Waist and instep are important measurements too, but we are leaving them here out of the discussion for a moment. Only so much, they need to fit your shoe as well, if you feel any pressure or the shoe is loose at these points, please don't go for it - it's not meant to be yours!

Foot problems - Why my shoes don't fit? (Part 5)

Shoe fitting is also about protecting your foot skeleton from harm and long term damages. Fashion is fashion, but wrongly fitted shoes are a serious long term danger and cause foot problems.

In the previous article "Why my shoes don't fit? (Part 4)", we have concluded, that for a perfect shoe fitting, the shoe last has to match at certain mecherment points with our foot skeleton.

Your shoes are fitting, if the width of the joints (which are the widest part of your foot, and the volume of the shoe last, which incluedes instep, waist and short heel, are identical to your foot skeleton. The shoe last length has not such an importance; it just has to provide enough room and space for the toes, but one shoe size up or down in length is not that important to the shoe fitting like it would have for the shoe width.

We have discussed lots about shoes and shoe lasts, it's time to have a closer look at our foot.

1. Everybody walks an average of about 70 million steps in his life

2. The foot is the most complex bone structure in our body.

3. The foot skeleton is arranged by 26 bones alone

4. With about 70% adults, the left and right foot skeleton is showing mayor differences

5. With 30% the second toe is longer than the big toe

6. And the most growing business of the shoe industry, in the last decade, is the orthopedic sector

You can find thousands of shoe care tips in the Internet, but hardly anybody cares about shoe fitting and the consequences could be disastrous food problems.

Just have a look at some pictures:

The skeleton above shows a normal shaped foot. Below you see the position for a week- flattened foot.

One main reason of such a disease is too short and narrow shoes. In this dramatic case a surgery would be unavoidable.

In the next picture you can see a footprint of a flat- and a normal foot:

Another common foot problem is the "Morton-Toe". A weakening transverse arch could displace the joints:

This could have happened through excessive wearing of high heels. By excessive I mean, daily walking (not sitting) on high heels, with more than of two inch height, for more than 2-3 hours.

The reason is, that all weight is been put on the front of the foot, the muscular structure on the longitudinal arch is getting weaker and the inside joint is getting misplaced.

Also narrow and short footwear could cause this kind of problem.

Attention Ladies! Here you see an x-ray of a foot in a sexy high heel. No words required.

For a good shoe fitting, it's absolutely essential, that everybody starts to observe their foot. What is the actual length of my foot? Are they having the same width? What type of foot do I have? I will explain later more about some simple methods how to measure and observe our foot.

There is some bad news for you, even if you're aware of all critical aspects of your foot - you know now your length, the width etc., there is no way that you can find out, if these measurements are corresponding with your shoe. On a finished shoe you can't check these measurements - no way! Now the good news is, that the shoe industry is of course aware of this problem and they are giving us some information's about the shoe. How we can use these information's, I will explain to you in the next article.

Shoe sizing systems - Why my shoes don't fit ? (Part 6)

Shoe sizes are suppose to help us to find our perfect shoe fitting, but unfortunately they are creating lots of confusion.

In the previous chapter "Why my shoes don't fit? (Foot Problems)", we have discussed, what could happen to our feet and health, if we continuously wearing wrong-fitting footwear.

Now, obviously shoes are marked by shoe sizes. What is not so obviously, what all these different shoe sizing systems actual mean or stand for? If you're looking into your sports shoes for example, you will see that shoe sizes are classified in different, regional shoe sizing systems. The most important ones are the US, UK and Europe systems, but also Mexican or Japanese.

These entire different shoe sizing systems creating more confusion to us than giving valuable information's about the shoes! These shoe sizing systems and classifications having their roots back to the first century of the Roman times! No joke!

The British and USA are using the barleycorn unit as measurement unit. 1 barley(corn) is 1/3 inch long. It seems that genetically modified foot processing was already at those times from importance!

However, somehow around 1300, they have decided that the largest shoe size (not foot) is a size 13 and 13 inch long. From here it's been counted backwards, in barleycorn units, to the next shoe size, for example: size "8" for adults is 11 inch long. Don't believe me? Try it out, start counting - it's shear madness.

The Americans seemed to be not too happy with this shoe sizing system and decided that nothing can start from zero, like the British system does, it has to start from 1, with the result: the US size is one size up to the British. A size "9" in UK is a size "9.5" in US. Unfortunately this "simple" system differ in gender for American women shoes, here the difference is 2.5 sizes up to the British system. For example a size 10 in America would be a size 7.5 in Britain. Most likely this is all not too helpful for the customer, but that's how it is.

Europe, of course without the British again, is following the measurement system of Paris Point. Never heard of it? Well, we've got already the impression from UK and America, that shoe sizing systems are not meant to be customer friendly - no surprise here as well.

Anyhow, one Paris Point is equal to 2/3 of a centimeter or 6.6 mm long. To find out the last length for each size with Paris Point you start with the largest size for gents, which is size 50 and 335 mm long and start counting backwards, for each size 6.6 mm.

For ladies, I would suggest to start with a small size, like 32 which is 215 mm long and start counting forward.

But what is really too bad about all these different systems, is that they are all all about shoe last length and not about our foot, apart from that the fact, that really nobody un- derstands what is the meaning of shoes sizes.

A shoe varies in length according to the design and it's wrong to assume, if a shoe last is of length x and than the shoe size should be size y. It's so obvious, look at this:

Left you see a pointed toe shoe; it has a long toe allowance of approximate 25 mm or even more, the moccasin has a rounded toe with an allowance of approximate 10 mm and the sandal has short toe allowance of approximate 5 mm only and nowhere you can find the information how long the shoe last is, which is been used for these three shoes.

Remember the barleycorn shoe sizing system is based on the fact that the longest shoe is 13 inch long for a size 13. I guarantee you, that for all these three shoes, if marked with shoe size "13", the length of the shoe last would not be 13 inches long.

Now the industry has tried to help out this fix, they came up with the conversion tables. The whole Internet is full with them. We've been asked us to measure our foot, use a conversion table and see what shoe size we have. Now let's have a look, here are two different conversion tables for shoe sizes:

Let's assume our feet is 27.3 cm long, we can see, that there are differences in the two tables for the UK size as well for the European size, even though they are not big. The fact remains, that there is nothing like the one and only standard.

Its get even worse: many manufacturers over the time build up their on shoe sizing sys- tem with the intention that their footwear would fit with their customers better. Well thought, but standards are working not like that!

The industry is building shoe lasts with a standard-last-length system, but there is no standard for foot length vs last length, this depends entirely on the shoe design and its features. Still there are last lengths in conversion tables published, while at least 80% of all footwear is not following this so called "standard-last-length".

Of course the industry is aware of this problem and came out with their final shoe siz- ing system: Mondopoint.

Mondopoint - Why my shoes don't fit ? (Part 7)

The Mondopoint shoe-system is the latest shoe size system discovery of the industry.

In the previous part of the series "Why my shoes don't fit (Part 6)", we have talked about the difference about shoe sizing systems and for what they are standing for or better, what not for? All these different and regional shoe sizing systems are most confusing, because they are assuming that shoe sizes are related to shoe lasts and not to the human foot. Mondopoint should change this.

I've shown you in an example, with three different shoe types, that it is not correct to assume, if a shoe last has a length off "x" than the shoe size has to be "y", because each shoe is been designed to it's own specifications. You can't compare a ski boot with a sandal and saying: it's all about the same length. That's what the industry is forced to do, because there is no other system in place. A conversion table, which includes the length of out foot, is the only help we have, but a shoe size chart (conversion table) can be used only as a kind of indication, it can give us only an idea about our shoe size. We see later why that is.

The shoe industry realized that it can't go on with this confusion of different conversion tables or regional differences. Shoe sizes has to be related to the foot-length not the shoe last (well thought!) and they came up with a metric system, called the Mondopoint.

Mondopoint works very simple, measure the length of your foot and measure the width at the widest part of your foot - at the joints. These two figures are the Mondopoint. For example: your foot is 280 mm long and on the widest part of your foot it's 110 mm, the Mondopoint is 280/110.

In 2004 the Swedish Handicap Institute came out with a report, recommending that all suppliers of orthopedic shoes should follow the Mondopoint system, which is been used by the Swedish army and the NATO as well. The Swedish Institute demands too, that more consumer information's has to be declared by the manufactures; like last length, how they've been measured etc., to minimize errors and misunderstandings about the shoe fitting. The reason for the shift to Mondopoint was, when they came up with a project, where they have tested 5 different shoes from 3 different suppliers and they got the (shocking) result, that all the shoes had a different length! For shoe size 43 they got the following shoe lengths (in mm): 275, 281, 282, 288 and 291.

Of course this was unacceptable to the Institute:  16 mm tolerances between the smallest and the longest shoe. The conclusion: it has to be Mondopoint.

Well, the good thing about Mondopoint is that, for the first time, the length of the foot and not of a shoe last is been taking in consideration. But not so good is what the Swedish Institute has concluded:

“If a person’s length of the foot is 280 mm and the width of the foot is 110 mm, then the shoe size most appropriate in Mondopoint is 280/110. All shoes marked with 280/110 should fit this person’s foot, without having to try them on!"

My conclusion is, that you'll better try them on, because the mondopoint system looks to me, that somebody, in some administrative office, has started the work and in the middle of the job he either gave up or got retired and just before that, he submitted his project.

Where is the volume been taking in consideration of this system? A foot can be slim, strong or even normal and they all can have the same measurements in the length and the width isn't it? That's simple as that. A foot is three dimensional and not two. Mondopoint is now the ISO Standard and been used by the NATO! Of course, this revolutionary system has it not made to the ordinary shoe shops, it's been only privileged used by the NATO and its allies - poor soldiers.

We require a new metric system, which would make more sense to the customers. For example, if my foot is 28 cm long, my shoe size should be "28" - no conversion table is required. The shoe-width could also been taken in consideration, like "25" and finally a shoe could be marked like: "28/25", which means the shoe is for people with 28 cm long feet and 25 cm width around the joints.

Instead of numbers like size "11", we could name shoes sizes after a color, like "my shoe-size is blue or pink"  - it would equally make no sense to me. For everything we need a conversion table. It's simply not customer friendly.

If we buy a T-Shirt, here at least we get an idea about sizing. "Medium" or "Large" or

"L"and "XL", As long I could push my tummy in a "M" size one and I feel, that it looks fine (which certainly wouldn't be the case), than it's still not a problem as long I'm somehow able to breath. With a wrong shoes size, that's certainly not such a small issue, like you've seen the x-ray pictures in the previous article and considering, that almost 50% of all foot problems are the result of wrong fitted footwear and shoe sizes.

Shoe width - Why my shoes don't fit? (Part 8)

The shoe width is one of the most crucial measurement point 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.

Very important of course is the shoe width for a good shoe fitting. The shoe width is been measured around the joints and marked in characters like "C","D"or"E",etc. In the US today many vendors are measuring only the surface of the feet,