How to measure your feet to size your walking and ski footwear online.

We are a specialist boot fitting shop so we would always recommend coming to visit us in store if possible, but measuring your feet at home can be a great way to help us advise you on size or to check that we have the right sizes in stock ahead of a visit.

This article talks you through the best way to measure your feet accurately to identify your size, or ideally to pass the measurements to us so we can help you choose an appropriate size, make and model.

We recommend taking measurements in metric and to the nearest millimeter, this gives maximum accuracy and avoids errors in size conversions, take particular care with the length measurement.

Below are some guide lines and some photos, beware, this article contains some graphic foot images!

What you need

You will need a hard, smooth and flat surface, some sheets of paper (A4 will do for all but the largest sizes) a pen or pencil (ideally a thin one which is working well) both of your feet and an accurate ruler or measuring device. A smart phone or digital camera will also help make it easier for you to email us any photos of feet or foot outlines with measurements too but if you don’t have access to this you can call or email us with the measurements.

Bare feet will help make this as accurate as possible, also having someone draw the critical length lines in front of the longest toe and behind the heel can help with accuracy.

The Process

Stand bare foot on the paper on a hard flat surface, your feet should be weighted so you need to be standing up. make the length marks first, these are the most important so pay the most attention to step one.

Carefully mark in front of the longest toe

1. Draw a line on the paper in front of your longest toe and behind your heel.

The heel measurement is where the most error can creep in so take care! The heel mark should be straight down from the back of your heel, allowing for any heel spurs, imagine standing with your heel just touching a vertical wall, the mark on the paper would be at the base of that wall.

Make a mark vertically down from the furthest back part of your heel allowing for any spurs etc

The toe mark would be infront of your longest toe (this may be your second or third toe) allow for the full length of the toe and nail, again, imagine if you were standing with your toes lightly touching a vertical wall the mark would be at the base of the wall (this would mean that if you look down from directly above your toes you should just be able to see the line as in the picture above right).

If you draw under the toes or heel or have a thick pen which draws a line too far out then this will give an inaccurate measurement.

Heel mark vertically down from the back of the heel

Then draw around your whole foot to give a general idea of your foot shape, try to keep the pen mark vertically down from the edge of your foot, you may have to hold the pen or pencil at an angle. We want the overal width and length of your foot, not just the contact of your foot on the paper.

Repeat this process for your other foot on a different piece of paper.

Measure the length and the width and write the measurements on the sheet of paper, do the same for both feet.

Measure the length and width in millimeters

You can then email us a photo of the outlines or call us with this information, the longest foot is usually the most important but if we have the measurements for both feet then it helps us.

Sending photos of your bare feet stood on a flat surface from a few different angles can also help us gauge volume, instep height toe profile etc.

We then use the measurements and photos along with various foot measurement devices, the footbeds that come with the boots and our knowledge of how the different fits, brands and models compare for size and width to help you choose the most likely options for the best fit.

In this way we can give you an educated first choice of footwear make, model and size depending on your measurements and needs. Of course we don’t get it right for 100% of customers first go but we have found that over 90% of the time we can get you into the right footwear using this process first time and if it’s not quite right we will be able exchange the boots for a half a size up or down or offer an alternative width, we will exchange them free if the footwear is still unused and we can also refund fully if needed.

You can make your own size conversions from the measurements using the tables below, just be aware that some brands and models can be small or big for size so if you are unsure get in touch for advice.

For ski boot sizes you are best to get in touch as there are differences between the way that different brands do their size splits but the basic process for measuring is the same.