Xero Shoes: fit, sizing and which model to pick

Xero is the brand we end up recommending most often to people who have never worn a barefoot shoe, and the reason is not that it is the best shoe in the category. It is that Xero occupies a useful middle: wide enough for most feet, thin enough to count as barefoot, cheap enough that a failed experiment costs you a mid-priced pair of sneakers rather than a premium one, and sold with a returns process that actually works.

Xero's reputation for width comes from the Prio, the Scrambler and the Mesa line, and it is deserved there. It does not carry over to the HFS road-running line, which is a narrower shoe built for a narrower purpose. People buy an HFS expecting Prio width, find it tight, and conclude the brand has got worse. It has not — the lasts are different and the marketing does not make that obvious.

If toe splay is the reason you are switching, start with the Prio or the Scrambler and treat the HFS as a specialist road shoe you might graduate to.

Most Xero models ship with a 2 mm removable insole, and that gives you a genuine adjustment most barefoot brands do not. Insole in is slightly thicker underfoot and slightly tighter in volume; insole out is thinner and roomier. In practice that means two things for a new buyer: you can ramp down your ground feel over a few weeks without buying a second pair, and you have a half-size of volume adjustment available if the fit is marginally snug.

It also sets the direction of a sizing error. Half a size up is recoverable — put the insole back in, add a thicker sock. Half a size down is not recoverable at all, and that asymmetry is worth remembering when you are between sizes.

The Prio uses a huarache-style lacing panel across the top of the foot. On a normal or low instep it is excellent and holds the foot without squeezing the toes. On a high instep it concentrates pressure across the top, which some people find uncomfortable in a way that loosening the laces does not solve, because the panel itself is the problem rather than the tension. If you know you have a high-volume foot, the Dillon is the better Xero to start with — it is unusual in the category for working on low-volume and awkward-volume feet both.

Toe-box width is only half the question — the other half is shape, because a square-toed foot in a tapered toe box is cramped at the little toe even when the shoe is genuinely wide. On the published fit data, Xero Shoes suits the following toe-length patterns best. How to identify your own foot shape.

• Square (near-equal toes) — A genuinely square, foot-shaped toe box with full width carried right to the front. Almost every conventional shoe fails this shape, and so do several 'wide' barefoot shoes whose width is in the midfoot rather than at the toes.
• Plateau (broad and even) — Extra-wide, not wide. Width plus toe-box height, because a broad forefoot usually comes with more volume too. Standard wide shoes run out of room at the fifth metatarsal head, the widest part of the foot, long before the toes.
• Roman (even first three) — Width across the front third of the toe box specifically, with a generous big-toe allowance. A tapered toe box pushes toes two and three inward against the big toe, which is what starts the overlapping-toe problem.

Xero publishes a printable length chart and recommends measuring heel-to-longest-toe and adding room. Most models have a removable insole, so a half size up is recoverable; a half size down is not.

The method that works for every brand on this site is the same: measure heel to longest toe in millimeters, on both feet, standing, late in the day. Then compare that figure against this brand's own internal-length data rather than converting from the size you usually wear. How to measure your feet · the cross-brand sizing table.

The roundups that feature Xero Shoes, so you can see how it ranks against the alternatives rather than taking a brand page's word for it:

• Best barefoot shoes
• Best barefoot shoes for beginners
• Best barefoot hiking shoes
• Best barefoot running shoes
• Best barefoot sandals
• Best barefoot shoes for kids