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mfad•14mo ago

femto

fit advice on new loafers

After getting advice here, I ended up ordering my first pair of loafers from Rancourt way back in July, and they arrived today. My Brannock size is about 8.7EE, and I got 8EE loafers (their size guide gave me 8E, I went wider). But I'm not that happy with the fit and I'm considering returning them:

1. The main problem is that my toes are squeezed too much together. I don't know if I'd call it pain, but particularly on one side, it's quite uncomfortable. I don't want to wear it on that foot at all much less for hours. I have large toes with my outer two not being that much smaller than the middle ones, which is hard to fit into a sizing schema. However, this discomfort might just be how conventional leather shoes are not being foot shaped, I'm not used to wearing them - nowadays, I wear boots and sneakers sized a half size or more up. Do I have to just get used to this? Or decide not to wear leather shoes.
2. The heels are quite loose, they slip halfway or more out of the shoe when I walk - while wearing American Trench socks, I'd otherwise wear no-shows I assume. Is this normal? Would I be able to do something about this with inserts on the side? Note: This is despite the heel width being D on their EE shoes. So I have narrow or at least not wide heels.
3. They unexpectedly are on the long side, there's more than my thumb's width in front of my big toe. Which I've heard of being fine for boots but idk about loafers. This doesn't cause them to move lengthwise because they are quite snug at the ball of my feet, so perhaps a non-issue. Btw this suggests sizing up is not an option.

If I decide I don't want these or any that fit similarly, this doesn't bode well for me to be able to ever get loafers (or various other leather shoes) in the future. Allen Edmonds' widest size for their current loafers, EEE, didn't fit me at all!

Don't know if pictures will help but here some are, including showing heel slippage.