Fernand^® Footwear

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How to Trace and Measure Your Feet

     You may trace and measure your own feet or have someone do it for you. It is most important that you carefully trace and measure. For a loose fit, measure loosely. For a tight fit, pull the tape tightly over the foot. Use a cloth or plastic tape-measure, not a carpenter’s steel tape-measure.

      Stand, or kneel on one knee, barefoot, with your weight on the foot being traced, on a piece of paper, and on a hard smooth surface. Be sure that your toes are somewhat spread out, like they would extend when you take a step. Be careful while tracing not to move your foot.

     Please trace the lines around your feet several times to darken the correct outline, and please check your measurements until you consistently get the same measurement at the same point. You measure twice, we cut once.

      Measure over the toes, ball, and waist of the foot, not around the foot, and mark on the paper the spots where the measurements started and ended, on both sides of the foot. When you trace the outline of your feet, be sure that the pen or pencil is held straight up, perpendicular to the paper, especially at the heel and toes. Use a pencil or a pen that has a barrel like a pencil, like the Bic Stick.

      If you wear orthodics, and you would like us to build your shoes to accomodate the orthodics, we need to have two sets of tracings and measurements-- one barefoot, and another standing on the orthodic.

      Look at your tracing, and if one foot traces or measures bigger than the other, be certain that it is, for we will make one shoe bigger than the other.

      Please do not let these instructions intimidate you. Most people do an okay job. If the shoes do not fit because of incorrect tracings or measurements, we guarantee that they will fit. So we will try again to make them right or refund your money.

Step by Step Instructions to Trace & Measure Feet

1. For the outline, hold the pen straight up and run it around the foot several times, darkening the correct outline, especially around the back of the heel.
2. For the inner line, hold the pen at an angle and run it around under the edge of the foot, tracing where your foot touches the paper.
3. With a tape measure over the middle of the five toes, measure to 1/16th of an inch. Mark on the paper where you held the tape’s scale. Write the measurement there at the mark.
4. Over the ball of the foot, where the foot bends and is widest, measure and mark where you measured, and write down the measurement at the mark.
5. One inch behind the ball, over the waist of the foot, make another measurement and mark it down. Do not measure further back over the instep.
6. Before lifting your foot from the paper, please double-check all your measurements. Completed tracings should look something like this, one for each foot.

Foot Tracing Checklist:

___My bare foot was flat on the floor and didn’t move when tracing it, while shifting my body weight.

___My feet were not swollen when tracing.

___My toes were not curled up when tracing.

___I am sure I held the pen or pencil straight up around the sides, the toes, and specially around the back of the heel.

___I carefully traced the outline of each foot clearly, and retraced it to darken and define it well.

___I measured over the ball of the foot where the bones are the widest, which may be at a slant to the central axis of a foot’s length.

___I measured the waist of the foot about one inch behind the ball, not further back on the instep.

___I marked where the measurements were taken on both sides of the feet, and wrote the measurements there. And double-checked them.

Call us if you would like us to talk you through the tracing of your feet.

(800) 419-8621

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