What JM Weston 180s tell us about shoe fit

I’ve never owned a 180 loafer , and so I didn’t realise until recently how tricky a shoe it is to fit. A recent visit to the Weston store opened my eyes, however. It really is a thing, and it tells us some interesting things about shoe fit i... > Read more

By Swedan Margen4 September 2026

What JM Weston 180s tell us about shoe fit Friday, September 4th 2026Tags:

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A recent version of the 180 Loafer, using upcycled materials

I’ve never owned a 180 loafer, and so I didn’t realise until recently how tricky a shoe it is to fit. A recent visit to the Weston store opened my eyes, however. It really is a thing, and it tells us some interesting things about shoe fit in general.

The problem with the 180 is twofold. First, it is built on an old last that’s different from most of the rest of the collection.

Even though most shoe companies have several lasts, they usually have similar ideas of relative proportion and sizing, so customers are picking between styles rather than approaches to fit and are a similar size in all of them. That doesn’t apply to the 180 or the Golf derby-style in the Weston range.

Second, these old shoes are generally wide and round, with a high wall at the front. Those things combine to give your toes a lot of room, and the potential to stretch out a little more width-wise if needed.

The high ‘wall’ in particular is worth focusing on. Most shoes slope downwards at the front, reducing the amount of room for your toes. As a result you need to leave more space there, with your toes finishing some way from the end.

When the front slopes downwards less, and in fact is higher overall, you don’t need to do this and can take a smaller size. You always need some space of course, as your foot rolls forwards as you walk, but the difference might still be a good half size.

Look at the two shoes below for a comparison. There’s a lot more room at the front with the 180 (top) compared to Weston’s smarter Fusain model (bottom).

The ‘wall’ is the side of the shoe, by the way, running all the way around the toe. It’s referred to as higher when it slopes up more, and less inwards. This is a style often associated with Ivy-style shoes, like Weejuns, although look at a Weejun in profile and you can see how much higher the 180 is.

The 180 with its high 'wall' at the end of the toe

The Fusain oxford, with a downward slope to the toe

What difference does this make in reality? Well, Lucas and I spent a happy hour in the Jermyn Street store trying on every size and width combination (happy, at least in part, because there was a heat wave outside and the shop has very good air conditioning).

I ended up a half size down, and one width down, from what I’d normally take (8.5D rather than 9E). But Lucas ended up a full size down (9.5E rather than 10.5E).

You can understand why Weston recommends caution before buying online, and gently urges them to come into the shop to try on their size if possible. I can’t think of another shoe that has such divergent sizing.

(One other example is the Alden modified last as sized by Anatomica in Paris. But that’s less about the shoe and more about the approach of the store.)

And, it’s not as if you can tell people to just take a half size down from what they do normally. Lucas and I are a good illustration of this.

Lucas and I both have long feet, but mine are much thinner than his. I have a lot less volume – in the width, the height, and the general roundness. As a result, he benefits a lot more from the shape of the 180 – with its extra width and height and roundness. It’s more the shape of his foot.

Because of the difference, he can go down a whole size (possibly even a size and a half) while I only go down a half size. This is the problem with every comparison online of what size you wear in one shoe, and what you should therefore wear in another. It’s not just dependent on the relative shapes of the shoes – it’s also dependent on the shape of that particular foot.

We all know buying shoes online can be annoying, but this was a particularly clear demonstration of the problems.

By the way, it should be mentioned that Weston have a lot of widths in store – three in things like the Chelsea boot (my favourite) but six in popular things like the 180 in black, A to F. That’s particularly useful when you might well go down a width as well as a size.

As if you need one more thing to mess with your mind, remember that widths are relative but lengths absolute. A length refers to a particular size of shoe, but a width refers to the relative proportion in regards to that length.

If you go down a length but want to keep the same width, you actually need to go up a width. So in fact when I went from a 9E to an 8.5D, I was going down two widths not one.

Fun, isn’t it?

Images: All JM Weston except first image, Pauline Caranton; penultimate image, Marion Berrin.