Vans Authentic

Mostly yes. Following Vans's size guidance online, 67% of feet got their true size in the Vans Authentic. Here, true to size means the size Vans's online guidance gives you is less than a full size away from the size that fits best, with enough toe room and enough forefoot volume.

For length, Vans's guidance is easy to use. Vans's size chart gives a foot length for each size in inches and in centimeters, shows men's and women's sizes in the same table, and points out that your longest toe may not be your big toe. Forefoot volume is where the guidance stops short. The Authentic also comes in a wide version, and Vans states the wide version's ball girth is 10 mm bigger than the regular width. Vans's guidance online gives no way to tell whether you need the wide version, so our score uses the standard width only. With a way to choose between standard and wide, Vans's score would have been 79.

The Vans Authentic and the Vans Old Skool have a very similar overall silhouette and size the same way, so both came out the same in our fittings. Here is where every foot landed in the Authentic, in the standard width, when we followed Vans's size chart.

Share of 9,994 feet. Each foot is counted once.

• Right size from the size chart: 67% of feet got a size that matched both their foot length and their forefoot volume in the standard width. For this group, Vans's size chart gave the right size in the Authentic.
• Sized up for more forefoot volume: 23% of feet found the standard width too snug in forefoot volume at the size the chart gave. Without the wide version, the only fix was a bigger size, which also adds length in front of the toes. If you already know you need a wide width, the wide version of the Authentic adds forefoot volume without the extra length.
• Sized up for toe room only: 8% of feet had enough forefoot volume, but the size from the chart left very little room in front of their toes. If your foot measures near the long end of a size on Vans's chart, consider half a size up in the Authentic.
• Sized down for less forefoot volume: 2% of feet had too much forefoot volume in the standard width at the size the chart gave. The Authentic has no narrow version, so these feet went down a size, which also means less room in front of the toes.

We measured the standard width of the Authentic and virtually fitted 9,994 real feet from our earlier in-store 3D foot scanners. Out of 17,311 foot scans, those 9,994 feet fall in the sizes we tested (US men's 6.5 to 16). For every foot, we followed Vans's size guidance online: the length chart, in the standard width. The score of 79 with the width options is estimated from standard width steps, not measured on the wide version itself. A difference of a full size or more between Vans's size and the size that fits best counts as a miss. These numbers show how the Authentic fits a large group of feet, not how the shoe feels on your feet.