Gear in London

I know the feeling. I got lucky with fins but perhaps it was not entirely luck, over the years I've learnt a few things about shoe(/fin) sizing:

1. The foot measuring devices used in shoes shops are consistent but wrong, they consistently measure my feet 2 half sizes smaller than I can actually wear.

2. Manufacturers: Sizes vary a lot from manufacturer to manufacturer - especially on width. For example Nike shoes are narrow, La Sportiva boots & shoes are narrow, New Balance & HiTech are wider. Boreal, Spain actually make wider shoes for the British market - bless them

3. Sizes: American sizes cannot be relied on, especially around the size 11/12/... area, it seems manufacturers went their own way on larger sizes. British sizing is a little better but still unreliable. Surprisingly to me, the EU sizes seem to work and are pretty consistent (but see #2 above!) - my feet are: USA 11-12.5, UK 9.5-11 and EU 45.

4. Conversion Tables comparing different sizes - typically UK v. USA v. EU differ considerably and, in my experience, most of them are very badly wrong.

So the best advice I can give is, find the best EU size for your feet - through experience not by measuring devices - and use that as your guide. Get the correct size or slightly bigger, as you can pad with thicker socks or perhaps even insoles if too big; do not buy footwear small there is almost nothing that can be done for footwear that is too small!*

*Anti-clever dick clause: there are a few (very few) cases when small, tight-fighting footwear is desirable/required - high performance rock-climbing shoes/slippers are the only one I can think of (perhaps ballet shoes?). It is possible (but not recommended) to stretch the leather in some leather shoes.

For all the complications mentioned in 1-4 above, manufacturers/seller sometimes provide a foot length & width in cm - in the 2 cases when I have used that as my guide, it worked remarkably well.

BTW re. wetsuits

1. There are companies it Italy (e.g. Eliossub) and Greece that will make a spearo suit to fit you. They provide measuring guidelines to help you get it right. That's what I did for my first wetsuit and it fit great.

2. I just bought a new wetsuit on-line. I measure myself carefully (clothes sizes are poor guides to actual size, you must measure with a tape). Once I had my measurements I looked at size tables from different manufacturers. Cressi was too skinny & too expensive but Mares seem like a good match for me and their size ranges were fairly generous, giving me some "wriggle room" (figuratively & literally), around the points of most concern to me.

On spearo.co.uk, spearodave makes the point (under the title "Why Elios suits are better" or similar) that Elios made-to-measure suits use harder less stretchy neoprene, which will retain its warmth/loft better at depth & over time. And that big-brand off-the-shelf suits are typically softer & stretchier - to cover a wide range of people with just a few standard sizes (makes sense) - but will not be as tough, nor keep its warmth at depth & over time.

When I bought my suit, Elios said that some of their more expensive neoprenes compress less but they are primarily aimed at SCUBA divers who go deep & stay down longer (and presumably perhaps freedivers who go very deep?) but for spearos who don't stay down long and/or don't go very deep regular, cheaper neoprenes are fine. I got the cheapest neoprene ("Ecoline") and it has been great for the last 10 years, cannot fault it - Elios were right, they know what they are talking about. As Dave suggests, my new Mares suit is noticeably softer & stretchier, so we will have to see how it goes, I suspect that the differences will be subtle rather than stark - especially as new suits will have their full, original loft and old suits will not (although I haven't noticed any significant loss in warmth - the 10 year old Elios suit is still good in that regard). I think the softer material might give an even closer fit than made-to-measure (despite size compromises), I have already noticed a greater freedom of movement in the shoulders.