Buying guide

Best Shoes for a Tailor’s Bunion: Width Letters Don’t Decide It

A bunionette is on the outside of your foot. We measured 28 shoes: the widest toe box is 15mm wider than the narrowest, and width letters don't predict it.

Spec analysis — not yet tested · Published September 2026

A bunionette is a bump on the outside edge of your foot, and almost every shoe is built to give way on the inside. That is why the advice you have been given — buy a wider width — so often fails. We measured what actually differs between shoes, and the width letter on the box is not it.

What a bunionette actually is

A bunionette — a tailor’s bunion — is a prominence of the fifth metatarsal head, the bone at the base of your little toe. The fifth metatarsal drifts outward, the little toe drifts inward, and the knuckle left standing between them takes the pressure of the shoe wall on every step. The name comes from tailors, who sat cross-legged with the outside edge of the foot pressed into the floor.

Three things make it hurt, and only one of them is the bone. There is the bump itself; there is the soft tissue over it, which thickens into a bursa once it has been rubbed for long enough; and there is the skin, which answers persistent shear with a callus that then becomes its own pressure point. A shoe can change the second and third of those. It cannot change the first.

That is the whole reason footwear is the first thing anyone recommends for it — and the reason a shoe that is generally roomy can still fail you completely. Room in the wrong place does nothing. The fifth metatarsal head sits at the widest part of the forefoot, on the lateral side, and that is a specific place to need millimetres.

The number that decides it is not printed on the box

There is exactly one measurement that describes whether a shoe will press on a bunionette: the internal width of the shoe at its widest point, level with the fifth metatarsal head. No brand publishes it. What brands publish instead is a width fitting — D, 2E, 4E, “Wide”, “X-Wide” — which is a relative grading within that brand’s own last, not a dimension you can compare across brands.

An independent laboratory measures the interior. RunRepeat cuts shoes in half, and publishes two forefoot widths: one at the big toe, taken 28.3 mm from the tip, and one at the widest point. The big-toe figure is the one it publishes for most shoes, and we hold it for 31 of the 43 on this site. It is not the bunionette line, but it is the closest thing to it that exists in public — and further down, for the eight shoes where both numbers exist, you can see exactly how far apart the two are. Laid out side by side, it says something that contradicts the standard advice.

The shoes we have a measured toe box for, widest first

The same dataset, charted and kept current, lives on our toe box width chart, along with the fittings each brand sells and the shoes for which both forefoot measurements exist. The table below is the bunionette-relevant view of it.

Thirty-one shoes, measured by one laboratory at the big toe, 28.3 mm from the tip of the shoe. The widths column is what the brand offers — read the two together, because they disagree more often than they agree.

Every toe-box figure in this table is RunRepeat’s laboratory measurement of a standard-width pair, read September 2026. Width fittings are the brands’ own published ranges and change by model year and by region. We have not measured any of these shoes ourselves.

The eight shoes where we know both numbers — and they disagree

Everything above is measured at the big toe, because that is the figure published for most shoes. It is not where a bunionette sits. For eight shoes the same laboratory publishes both — the big-toe width, and the width at the widest point of the interior, which is the line your fifth metatarsal head actually meets. Side by side, the two are not the same ranking.

Both columns are RunRepeat laboratory measurements of a standard-width pair, read September 2026. The big-toe figure is taken 28.3 mm from the tip of the shoe; the widest-point figure is taken across the interior at the ball of the foot. The flare column is simply the difference — how much the shoe opens out between the two, which is another way of saying how sharply its last tapers. We have not measured any of these shoes ourselves.

Two things fall out of that table, and both matter more for a bunionette than any width letter will. The first is that shoes separate far less at the fifth metatarsal head than they do at the big toe. Across these eight, the big-toe figures span 15.3 mm; the widest-point figures span 7.5 mm. More than half the difference you can feel at the front of a shoe has already closed by the time you reach the side of it — which is the honest reason that buying up a width so often disappoints someone with a bunionette and satisfies someone with a bunion.

The second is that the order changes. The Altra Torin 8 is the widest of these eight at the big toe, by a clear 2.4 mm — and at the widest point it drops to third, with the Brooks Ghost 17 0.1 mm behind it. The Ghost 17 is the second-narrowest of the eight at the big toe. The HOKA Clifton 10 is fourth at the big toe and second at the widest point. A foot-shaped last buys room where the toes splay; it does not automatically buy room where a bunionette presses, and those are different places on the shoe.

So the honest position is this. If your bump is at the fifth metatarsal head, the number you want is the widest-point one, and it exists for eight shoes out of forty-three. For the other twenty-three in the table above, the big-toe width is the best proxy in public — and the Ghost 17 is the standing reminder that a proxy is not the thing itself.

Why buying a wider fitting so often fails

Across those 31 shoes the measured toe box runs from 67.3 mm to 83.6 mm — a spread of 16.3 mm. For scale, stepping up one full width letter at New Balance buys you roughly 3–4 mm. The gap between the narrowest and widest last on this site is about four width letters’ worth of room, and every one of those shoes is being sold to you in a standard width.

Now the part that matters for a bunionette. If width fittings tracked real width, the shoes offered in 4E and X-Wide would be the roomy ones. They are not. The 21 shoes here that offer a 4E or X-Wide fitting average 72.3 mm across the toe box in their standard width. The 10 that offer no such fitting average 75.1 mm. The correlation between how many fittings a brand offers and how wide the shoe actually is comes out at r = −0.25 — which is to say, none.

The clearest single case is at the two ends of the table. The New Balance Made in USA 990v6 has the narrowest measured toe box of all 31 at 67.3 mm — and it is sold in five fittings, B, D, 2E, 4E and 6E, more than anything else here. The Brooks Addiction Walker 2 is next at 68.3 mm, in four fittings for men and four for women. The Altra Torin 8 has the widest at 83.6 mm and is essentially a one-width shoe. A standard Torin 8 gives your fifth metatarsal head about 16 mm more room than a standard 990v6 — and no amount of going up a fitting closes that, because what differs is the shape of the last.

And the smaller lever is not offered to everyone

Three to four millimetres is the smaller lever, but it is real and it is free — and it is not equally available. Counting the published width listings across all 43 shoes on this site: thirteen publish a 4E, and exactly two publish a 6E, the New Balance Fresh Foam X 1540v4 (D/EE/4E/6E) and the New Balance 990v6 (B/D/2E/4E/6E). Both list that 6E under men’s sizing only — and the 990v6’s own standard-width last measures 67.3 mm in the table above, so a 6E listing is a wide programme rather than a wide shoe. On the women’s side there is no 6E anywhere on this site, and exactly one shoe publishes a women’s 4E — the ASICS GEL-CUMULUS 28, in a combined men’s and women’s listing. Three more offer a women’s “X-Wide” or “Extra Wide” without saying which letter that is: the HOKA Arahi 8, the HOKA Gaviota 6 and the Saucony Guide 19. For most women’s listings here the published ceiling is 2E.

That is why a good many people with a bunionette end up buying men’s sizing. It works for girth and costs you heel hold, because a men’s last is cut with a proportionally larger heel and more instep volume — roughly a size and a half down from a women’s size is the usual conversion, and a lace-lock or a heel-grip pad is the usual answer to the slip. It is a trade worth making deliberately rather than discovering halfway through a shift. And on the evidence of the table above it is still the smaller move: the shape of the last does more than the letter on the box.

What to check, in order

What to stop wearing

• Anything that tapers to a point. A pointed last moves the widest part of the shoe behind the widest part of your foot, so the fifth metatarsal head meets a wall that is already narrowing.
• Stiff, unlined leather over the bump. It will not stretch where you need it to and it transmits every step to the prominence.
• Shoes you plan to “break in”. A bunionette is a pressure problem; a shoe that hurts in the shop is applying that pressure now and will keep applying it.
• Anything held on by your toes — backless slides and flip-flops make the foot grip to keep the shoe on, which splays the forefoot against the sides on every step.

What the research actually supports — and where it stops

Footwear is not a fringe recommendation here. The most recent review of the condition, published in 2026, states plainly that conservative management — footwear modification and orthoses — is the recommended first-line treatment for a bunionette.

The same sentence carries the caveat, and we would rather print it than bury it: “no long-term studies have demonstrated sustained symptom relief with non-operative modalities.” First-line does not mean proven. It means it is what is tried first, because it is reversible, cheap and low-risk — not because a trial has shown it lasts.

Where the evidence runs out

• Nobody has trialled a shoe against a shoe for this condition. There is no comparison of lasts, widths or materials in bunionette patients. Everything on this page above the research section is mechanism and measurement, not trial evidence, and we would rather say so.
• That review is a narrative review, not a systematic one — its authors searched PubMed, Scopus and Embase to July 2025 and synthesised, but did not pool data or grade certainty. Most of its weight is on surgical comparison, where it also finds “the lack of high-quality prospective trials prevents definitive conclusions”.
• Our own measurements are one laboratory’s, on one pair each, in a standard width. 31 shoes is enough to show that fittings and real width diverge; it is not enough to rank brands, and we have not tried to.
• No threshold exists. Nobody has published how many millimetres of toe box a bunionette needs. We can tell you which shoes are wider. We cannot tell you how wide is wide enough for your foot, and anyone who gives you a number for that is inventing it.

When footwear stops being the answer

See a foot and ankle specialist rather than another shoe shop if the skin over the bump breaks down or ulcerates, if there is redness, warmth and swelling that does not settle overnight, if you have diabetes or any neuropathy and notice any skin change over the prominence, or if pain persists in shoes that genuinely fit. Surgery for a bunionette is a real option with real complication rates — the 2026 review reports 11% for distal osteotomies rising to 22% for proximal — which is an argument for taking the footwear attempt seriously first, and for having the conversation with a surgeon rather than with us.

Questions patients ask

Is a bunionette the same as a bunion?

Same mechanism, opposite side of the foot. A bunion is the first metatarsal head on the inside; a bunionette is the fifth on the outside. They can occur together — when they do, the forefoot is splayed at both edges and the shoe has to be wide across the whole ball of the foot rather than roomy at one end. Our bunion guide covers the first-toe side.

Will a wider shoe make the bump go away?

No. The bone position does not change with footwear. What changes is the pressure over it, and therefore the bursitis, the callus and the pain. That is worth having, and it is not the same as correction.

Do bunionette splints or toe spacers work?

There is no evidence they alter the deformity. A spacer between the fourth and fifth toes can stop them rubbing, and a soft pad can take load off the prominence — both are symptom management, and neither needs to be sold as anything more.

Is stretching the shoe worth it?

A cobbler can spot-stretch a leather upper over a specific prominence, and for a dress shoe that is often the most practical option available. It does not work on knit or engineered mesh, which simply relaxes back.

Why does it hurt more in some shoes at the same width?

Because width fittings are graded within a brand’s own last and the lasts themselves differ by more than the gradings do — 15.3 mm across the shoes in the table above, against 3–4 mm for a width letter. Two shoes both labelled 2E can differ by more than the step from D to 2E.

What happens next on this page

Every figure here is somebody else’s measurement, clearly labelled as such. When a bunionette-relevant shoe goes on our own bench it gets weighed, measured with calipers at the widest point of the interior, worn, and given an Orthotic Volume Rating — and only then does it carry a score or the seal. Until that happens this page stays in the spec-analysis tier and says so at the top. How we test →

Sources

1. Colò G, Fusini F, Marcolli D, Testa A, Leigheb M, Surace MF. Tailor’s bunion (bunionette): current concepts and outcomes of open versus minimally invasive surgery. Musculoskeletal Surgery. 2026;110. doi:10.1007/s12306-025-00941-6
2. RunRepeat laboratory measurements of toe-box width at the big toe (taken 28.3 mm from the tip) and, for eight shoes, at the widest point of the interior, per shoe, read September 2026. Individual figures are linked to each shoe’s page in the table above.
3. Brand-published width fittings, taken from each manufacturer’s current product listing, September 2026.

Nothing on this page is medical advice or creates a doctor–patient relationship. A painful bunionette with skin breakdown, or any skin change over the prominence in someone with diabetes or neuropathy, needs to be seen in person.

Measured, not guessed

Recently reviewed

Individual shoe pages state their evidence tier, published measurements and who should skip them.

HOKA

HOKA Clifton 11

Spec Analysis

HOKA’s product page carries a podiatric seal claim the APMA database does not support for this version, and a women’s stack height that contradicts HOKA’s own drop. Not tested by us.

$155Not scoredRegular, Wide, X-Wide

Skechers

Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins

Spec Analysis

Untested. A heel panel engineered to stay open cannot also be a rigid heel counter, and Skechers publishes no stiffness figure for it — nor a drop, a weight or a width.

$110Not scoredNot published at point of sale

New Balance

New Balance Made in USA 990v6

Spec Analysis

New Balance publishes no weight, drop or stack height for the 990v6, but it does publish B through 6E widths — and that range is why it still matters. Not tested by…

$199.99Not scoredM: B/D/2E/4E/6E

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No brand has ever paid for a review, a score, a ranking or the seal. Where we earn a commission the link says so, and the score does not change.

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