The first official description of a system of shoe sizes was published in England in 1688. in the manual The Academy of Armory and Blazon, around this time, Randle Holme mentions an agreement between shoemakers to use a quarter-inch (0.635 cm) system as a standard. More than a century later, a new measure was instituted by English manufacturers: a third of an inch (0.846 cm), the equivalent of a grain of barley, which was precisely the measure used by King Edward I, in the 14th century, as a standard for the shoes. This measure became a metric unit called a point, which, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, entered the first numbering system for shoe factories, created in 1800 by the American Edwin B. Simpson. The system also included half-point measurements, still used today in the US and England. Manufacturers didn’t start using the method until 1808, but it has survived and endures, with minor variations, to this day. Other countries, like Brazil, adopted different systems, but always based on the idea of a point. The Brazilian system uses the French point – two-thirds of a centimeter – which is more or less the standard across continental Europe. In Japan, the standard is simpler: 1 point is 1 centimeter.
ON TIPTOE
Check the numbering of a foot with 25 centimeters in some countries
– (Marcelo Zocchio/)
ENGLAND
4.5 (numbering) / 0.846 cm (dot)
Counting starts from zero, but not exactly at one end of the foot. Zero is 4 inches past the heel. From there, the numbering advances point by point – in this case, the English point, of 1/3 of an inch – up to the number 13, the limit of the children’s measurement. From then on, the adult measure begins, from 1.
U.S
5.5 (numbering) / 0.846 cm (dot)
The only difference between the American and English models is that in the United States the initial count starts with 1 instead of zero. Therefore, the numbering is always 1 point higher than in the English standard. But, in the same way, there are measures for children and adults.
BRAZIL
35 (numbering) / 0.66 cm (dot)
We adopted the French system, increasing a number (or point) every 0.66 cm. But we use a small variation, due to biotype. As Brazilian feet are wider, our pattern puts -2 on the heel instead of zero. Thus, a size 38 national shoe is the size of a size 40 in Europe.
FRANCE
37 (numbering) / 0.66 cm (dot)
French, or European, numbering was widespread in the early 19th century, Napoleon’s time. The unit of measurement is the French or Parisian point, which measures 2/3 of a centimeter. The zero is on the heel and from there to the tip of the toe, advance 1 point every 0.66 cm.