It’s a pretty classic issue, and at a certain point it’s caused me pause and inaction more times than I can count. If I’m about to drop a few hundred dollars on a pair of shoes online, how in the hell am I supposed to know whether they’re even going to fit?
Yeah, I know. Size. Duh.
Except that’s not really how it works. Anyone who’s spent enough time doing this knows that “size” is more of a suggestion than an answer. I couldn’t pass a blind fit test to save my life, but I can tell you this with confidence: my so-called “true” size feels slightly different in almost every shoe I put on. A Jordan 1 fits differently than a Jordan 3, not because one is right and the other is wrong, but because they were built for different purposes, on different lasts, for different assumptions about the person wearing them. And everyone’s feet, posture, and gait are different anyway.
Which is how I often end up frozen mid-scroll, finger hovering, running some version of the same sneaker math every time:
I owned a pair like this six years ago, but those were made somewhere else, and I think that matters.
There’s only an 8.5 and a 9.5 left. I think I’m a 9. Which mistake am I more willing to live with?
The 9 is $134. The 8.5 is $56. How uncomfortable is “slightly uncomfortable,” really?
There’s free shipping if I buy both sizes. I could always sell the other one, right?
The black pair runs big. The white pair runs small. Is the gray one true, or is that just what people say?
HELP.
What’s funny is that none of my confusion comes from a lack of information. A lot of it comes from having more of it than I know what to do with.
Because the truth is, most shoes already tell you exactly why they fit the way they do…it’s all right there on the size tag: country of manufacture, factory codes, measurements in centimeters and production dates. All of the context can be useful in trying to explain why one “size 9” feels nothing like another.
We just tend to ignore it. Or, maybe the vast majority of us don’t study these things like I do.
Sure, part of that is habit. We’re trained to look for the boldest number and move on. And, for the most part, does anyone really care? Part of it is speed. When you’re shopping quickly, or under pressure, or with limited stock, you’re not studying the fine print. You’re trying to make a decision fast enough that it still feels like a win.
But those details matter. A shoe built in one factory, on one last, for one intended use is never going to translate cleanly to another, even if the size number matches. Centimeters don’t lie, but they also don’t tell the whole story. Length isn’t width. Width isn’t volume. Volume isn’t motion. We have different feet. Different gaits. And our muscles (or lack thereof) play a part.
What we call inconsistency is often just specificity we weren’t paying attention to.
And over time, a lot of it starts through charts and reviews, or helpful posts like the ones we created to solve the problem. And all of that came from pattern recognition. We remember which tags worked out. Which countries felt right. Which models didn’t get more than a wear or two. Not because they were bad shoes, but because they didn’t match the expectations we were sold.
There’s an infographic that’s been bouncing around social media for a while, now, and it attempts to explain why shoes cost what they cost. It breaks down design, materials, labor, freight, retail pricing and gross profit. It’s an honest and earnest attempt that shuts down the argument that ‘it costs Nike $2 to make a pair of shoes’ (in reality, most retail pricing is roughly 4x cost to manufacture). But when you look at the actual list of costs…the story of the production behind that shoe is being told, and the size tag is the only artifact of that story that exists for consumers.
It’s become second nature for me - when I grab a shoe I instinctively begin the search for the size tag. It’s usually a straightforward process, but some shoes do a good job of hiding it…I’m mostly looking to verify two pieces of information - whether or not it’s my size and whether or not I believe it to be authentic. But the longer I’ve done this, the harder it’s become to ignore everything else printed there.
That small, white rectangle is there to remind me that the shoe I hold in my hand is actually a salient reminder of the fact that a shoe is a marvel of human scale…think of it…in the case of Nike:
Someone in Beaverton, Oregon, designs a shoe.
Someone else chooses colors and materials.
Someone approves the final version and places the order.
Someone halfway across the world receives the order and decides which factory can handle it, which materials can be sourced locally and which can’t.
Someone cuts the patterns.
Someone attaches the parts via stitching.
Someone assembles with glue.
Someone checks it.
Someone packs and ships it, and then it has to go through customs.
It arrives in your city, and someone puts it in the stockroom.
And then it finally ends up in your possession and (hopefully) on your feet.
There’s gotta be at least 20 people that touch a shoe before it ever reaches you. That blows my mind.
Thrifters and resellers think the product code exists to help them look up what they’ve found, but the real purpose of the product code is signify that a design has survived review, has been finalized and a shoe silhouette will be created. This is a designer’s fingerprint, and probably one of the clearest examples of the success of a (once-theoretical) design.
When a silhouette exists and has proven itself in the world, the color code is what allows it to exist in different colors and forms - this is probably one of the more obvious signs of a silhouettes success.
The product code and the color code are the ‘before’ phase of the manufacturing process.
The single most underrated piece of information on a Nike size tag, in my opinion, is the factory code. Every single one of those 2-4 digit combinations printed on the top right of the size tag represents a facility with likely hundreds - if not thousands of factory workers spending their days and nights performing the labor necessary to produce these shoes. And the more you look at factory codes, the more you see that certain factories specialize in certain product codes. One can only assume that specialization would be the reason for that.
Think about why that specialization would exist, though. One might assume that different countries would allow for different conditions that might benefit the labor process or the end consumer. I wonder if there’s someone at Nike who fast-tracks certain SKUs due to differing labor laws. The ‘Made In…’ text at the top tells you - this is where the shoe entered the world, and it might even tell us why…A half a world away.
And…finally…the US size is the US size, the UK, the EU…but…the CM size is really the only actual measurement used on the size tag. It’s literally the only part of the tag that attempts to describe the actual body part that the shoe is to cover. And even then - it only measures length. It doesn’t measure width, or, volume, or motion. Just length.
After all that coordination, labor, decision-making, the shoe still has to end up on YOUR feet - for the perfect activity.
I’ve likely spent countless days and months and years thinking about the famous people that wore the shoes - the Michael Jordans, the Kanye Wests, the Virgil Ablohs - and far less time thinking about the people that made the shoes. One is what we talk about, the other is what had to exist to bring it to reality. And every time I look at a size tag, it is a constant reminder that a ‘shoe’ is actually the last step in a much, much, longer and labor-intensive process. Not just design and manufacturing and logistics, but people. Countless, nameless people. All condensed into a tag most of us barely notice.
The long way around.