Nippon Couture’s guide to Japanese shoe sizing
We’ve done our best to cover this complex subject. Now, please bear in mind that there’s often variation in how shoe sizes are marked depending on the region of the world they’re sold. Also, it’s not uncommon for designer shoe sizing to be a little off compared to the more reliable sizing of large-scale footwear manufacturers.
Fortunately for their footwear fans, ISSEY MIYAKE and COMME des GARÇONS generally keep things pretty simple. ISSEY MIYAKE almost always uses the EUR measurement system, which converts easily to US and UK sizing systems.
COMME des GARÇONS tend to stick to the Japanese cm-based system through all their lines, as well as often displaying the converted sizes too.
Now let’s talk about Yohji Yamamoto. Yohji likes to keep us on our toes, utilising a range of different sizing methods. Pour Homme, Costume d’Homme and Y’s mainline all use the brand-specific 1-6 number system. This can be difficult to directly convert into western measurements. Y’s for men sizing varied, but commonly they made use of only four size variations: S/M/L/XL.
Y-3 shoes are blissfully almost always marked with standard worldwide multiple sizes. This makes it much easier. Thanks Y-3!
