Introduction

Mondopoint offers a simple and universal solution to the problem of communicating footwear sizing to customers in the global market, overcoming the present confusion resulting from labelling with multiple size systems. Online and mail-order customers are commonly encouraged to measure and report their foot length as a guide to shoe size selection. Mondopoint lends itself directly to this approach.

The last maker will use whatever last dimensions they consider necessary to produce the required footwear fitting properties, taking into account factors such as footwear type and style, modulus/stretch characteristics of the upper materials being used, and the thickness of hose appropriate to the type of footwear.

The length grading interval, which is the difference between adjacent whole shoe sizes (as defined in ISO/TS 19408:2015, 2.1.9], used by manufacturers aligning to the Mondopoint system, is normally 5 mm, although 7,5 mm is sometimes used in specialist footwear applications.

Some manufacturers, particularly in the Far East, use the Mondopoint sizing system but do not necessarily label it as Mondopoint, as shown in Table 1, for example.

Table 1 — Example of a sizing system

Shoe	mm	CN	JP	Korea
1	260	260	260	260
2	265	265	265	265

Some manufacturers express size in centimetres rather than millimetres (e.g. 26 in place of 260 or 26,5 in place of 265). Other manufacturers give size markings that relate to last length rather than foot length. Neither of these expressions of size conform to this document.

Regarding the linear width of the foot (or indeed, the joint girth of the foot or any other foot dimension):

a) it is good commercial practice to design footwear to fit the average foot in a given market based on knowledge of foot morphology for the demographic or ethnic group, and on statistical average foot dimension values for each shoe size in the specific market;
b) because the statistical distribution of the dimensions of the feet to be fitted differs from one country to another according to the characteristics of the population and because of the diversity of grading systems in different countries, it is not considered possible at present to define a width designation system at the international level, other than as given in this document;
c) other sizing systems use various codes to indicate the joint girth of the foot fitting properties of footwear; usually each market decides which joint girth designation reflects the "average" population girth and what joint girth value to associate with each designation.

EXAMPLE

China uses decimal notation: 2,0, 2,5, 3,0, 3,5...; the UK, US and Japan use letters: A, B, C, D...; the EU uses letters or whole numbers: 3, 4, 5, 6…; and Germany additionally uses WMS (weit-mittel-schmal or wide-medium-small/narrow) for children’s footwear.

BS ISO 9407:2019

Footwear sizing. Mondopoint system of sizing and marking

Current, Under Review

Published:

31 Jul 2019