Cool East Market Minimal Shoes Sizing Guide

If you're trying to figure out what size to buy you've come to the right place! This guide will cover Xero and Lems brand shoes, with other brands we carry to be added over time.

As always, if you have questions please let us know by email at info@cooleastmarket.com !

How to Use This Guide

This guide provides you with the same information our team uses to find your size. We stock numerous brands – however, each brand has its own sizing system and sometimes they are not consistent between models. Our goal is to provide our research-savvy customers with as much useful information as possible, so they can make the best choice.

1. Measure your feet.
2. Find your baseline: we use the Xero Prio as our baseline for what fits “true to size” because it fits as expected for most of our customers, plus it's our top selling shoe, so many of our customers already have access to it for comparison.
3. Once you've found your baseline, use that and your desired fit- snug or roomy- to look up your sizing in other models.

Measure Your Feet the CEM Way

Often when tracing our feet with a pen and paper, the pen can add or subtract to the size of your footprint depending on how you hold it. We learned this trick online for getting an accurate measurement.

You will need a book, a wall, and a ruler or tape measure. 

1. Put your heel against the wall so your foot is perpendicular to the wall, and place the book on the ground in front of your foot.
2. Slide the book towards your foot until it just touches your toes.
3. Carefully remove your foot without moving the book, then measure the space between the wall and the book in centimeters. This is your foot length.
4. Make sure to measure both feet, since one may be longer than the other.

Baseline Size Finder

We determined the ideal foot length range for each size by measuring the length of the Prio insoles and subtracting 1-1.5cm. That extra room in front of your toes is needed to get full range of movement in your gait, but you can adjust how much room you want in the next step.

*We encourage our customers to wear the size that fits them best regardless of the age group or gender named on the label. While some brands we carry are unisex in terms of width, Xero sizing is wider in men's sizes and narrower in women's sizes.

*Youth sizes updated for improved accuracy July 29th, 2021.

Comparative Sizing Charts

To use these charts:
1. Find the model you want to buy.
2. Look at the number given under your preferred fit. (We recommend choosing roomy for models that do not stretch out as you wear them in.)
3. Add it (or subtract it if it's a negative) to your Baseline Size.
4. The result will be our best guess for your size in that model.

Sizing is not an exact science as we all have unique three-dimensional feet, and this is just looking at length. We've created these charts to help you get as close as possible to the best fit using our extensive product knowledge and experience, so we hope they help!

Xero shoes general notes: Xero shoes tend to have a consistent width from the toebox to the heel. We recommend Xero models that are slip on (no tongue) only to folks with wide and tall ankles and heels, as they cannot be easily customized to suit folks with narrower hindfeet. Meanwhile, Xero models that have a tongue and lace up over the tongue can be easily customized to suit a variety of different foot volumes and shapes. Some of their models stretch out or mold to the shape of your foot and some don't, we've tried to include this information on each product's page. Xero sandals tend to fit true to size: when in between sizes, try the smaller size first in their sandals.

Lems shoes general notes: Lems shoes tend to be widest in the toebox and then taper towards the heel, so they suit folks with tapered feet or narrower heels and ankles quite well. Folks with very high volume feet or very high arches may find the Boulder Boots constricting over the arch, but otherwise they tend to fit well on most foot volumes. Lems uses unisex sizing, so the exact same pair of shoes will be labelled as both men's 8 and women's 9.5, for example. This means you cannot switch your size to get a different width.

Coming Soon

In the future we'll be adding other brands that we carry here including Leguano, Nomadic rope sandals, Vivo Barefoot and Earth Runners grounding sandals.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Let us know if we missed something as this guide will be growing and evolving over time! We welcome your feedback at info@cooleastmarket.com