The Mr. Derk Guide to Alden Sizing
Alden build on five different lasts and they do not size alike. A man who is a 10D on one can be a 9.5E on another. Here is how each one runs, what we carry on it, and how to find your number without guessing.
Your shoe size is two numbers. With Alden it is three.
Alden is an American maker and everything on our site is in US sizing. The number stamped in the shoe is the number you order.
The first number is length and the second is width, which is what a Brannock device has measured since 1929 and the one most men have never been told. The third is the last, the wooden form the shoe is built around. Alden use several, they are shaped differently, and the same foot lands on a different number depending on which one is under the shoe.
That is why a single conversion chart cannot answer Alden, and why we would rather work it out with you than leave you to a table.
Sixteen shoes, five different shapes.
Alden Last Chart
Start from the shoe you already own and wear most, not from a number in the abstract. Tell us what it is and what size you take in it, and we will tell you where you land in the last you are looking at. If you are between sizes anywhere, that is the moment to ask rather than order.
D, E, and one EE.
If you need a wider width, the reason changes the length. This is the part that catches people out, so it is worth saying plainly.
If you are taking a wider width because of a high arch or instep, go down half a size from your Brannock length. The width is doing its work over the top of the foot rather than across the ball, so the length still runs long on you.
If you are taking a wider width because your foot is genuinely broad across the ball and you want the room, stay at your true Brannock size.
If you are not sure which of those two is you, that is exactly the question to send us.
The overarm seven rule.
In the shop, Sterling fits every pair on the overarm seven rule and will not send a pair out that is not right. We would rather lose the sale than put you in the wrong shoe, because an Alden is a twenty year purchase and a half size out is a half size out for twenty years.
You do not have to be in Edmonton for that. Tell us the shoe you wear most and the size you take in it, and we will work out where you land.
Fourteen days, either way.
Order it and try it at home for fourteen days. Leave the tags on and keep the shoe unworn and unmarked, indoors only, and if it is not right we will arrange the return. Sale pieces are the exception.
If it is the size rather than the shoe, tell us and we will exchange it for the size or width that is right, subject to what Alden have available at the time.
One thing genuinely worth knowing before you wait: Alden make to their own schedule. When a size sells through it can be six to twelve months before the next run. If the size or width you want is not showing on the site, tell us and we will check what can be ordered in.
The full Alden guide.
Our complete guide to Alden covers the models, the leathers, the difference shell cordovan makes and how the shoes are built, with every shoe we carry linked through it: read the complete Alden guide.
For UK and EU conversions across every brand we carry, see the size conversion guide. Alden itself is ordered in US sizing.