Clarks, read closely: the best place to have a child’s feet measured, and a shop that has grown untidy
The Somerset shoemaker has fitted British children for longer than anyone can remember and still does it better than the internet. Its own website, crowded with other people’s brands and fine print, is a different matter.
Published October 2026·Last reviewed October 2026
Briefly
Yes, but buy in a shop if you can. Clarks still does two things nobody else on the high street matches: it measures children’s feet properly and sells school shoes in several widths, and it makes the Desert Boot. Online, the picture is less tidy. Postal returns cost money, the window is shorter than most rivals’, and a growing share of what the site sells is not made by Clarks at all.1 Exchanges and returns in a full-price shop remain free.
In their favour
Start where most British families start, with a child standing on a gauge while an assistant presses a thumb on the toe of a shoe. Clarks has made this its business for generations, and the evidence is that it still does it well. The school shoes come in standard, wide and extra-wide fittings, which sounds a small thing until you have a child whose feet do not match the average.3 The fittings can be booked online, and there is a foot gauge sold for measuring at home. The Trustpilot page is unusually crowded with reviews naming individual shop assistants, by first name and branch, for their patience with small, unwilling customers.5
The Trustpilot page is unusually crowded with reviews naming individual shop assistants, by first name and branch, for their patience with small, unwilling customers.
The second argument is the Desert Boot, designed in 1950 and still sold in something close to its original form: a soft upper, two pairs of eyelets, and a crepe sole that looks like a slab of pale toffee.3 It has been worn by mods, by Jamaican rude boys and by Britpop bands, a lineage the product page recites with evident pleasure, and it has the rare quality of looking right with almost everything. The Wallabee, its odder moccasin cousin, follows the same principle. The Desert Boot carries several hundred reviews and the drift is consistent: people who owned a pair years ago keep coming back for another.
Third, the shops. Clarks still has a large estate of full-price stores, and they are the brand’s real advantage. Online orders can be collected from them free, returned to them free and exchanged in them on the spot, and a store refund is processed immediately rather than after a week in a warehouse.1 There is also a telephone line staffed on weekdays,6 which puts Clarks ahead of several younger rivals that have abandoned the idea entirely. For a shoe shop, a place where you can try the other size before leaving is worth more than any promotion.
The case against
The online returns policy is meaner than it looks. You have twenty-eight days from receipt, or fourteen on anything reduced, the shoes must be unworn and in their box, and a postal return costs a fixed fee that is deducted from your refund. Delivery charges are not refunded unless the item is faulty.1 Exchanges by post are free, which helps with sizing, but anyone who simply changes their mind pays twice. Orders cannot be cancelled once placed, and an item bought on a two-for-one offer is refunded at a share of the discount, not its ticket price. None of this is hidden. It is merely a long way down the page.
Exchanges by post are free, which helps with sizing, but anyone who simply changes their mind pays twice.
The second problem is that clarks.com is no longer just Clarks. The navigation now offers partner brands, sportswear from other labels and, improbably, a beauty section.6 These are sold by third parties with their own returns windows, their own warehouses and their own rules; you cannot take them back to a Clarks shop, and the email discount does not apply to them. The outlet is a separate website with a separate returns policy again, and the most bitter one-star reviews on Trustpilot come from people who discovered this only when a shop turned their outlet purchase away.5
Third, there is a persistent murmur in the reviews that the shoes are not what they were. Long-standing customers on Trustpilot describe a tighter fit than before, even in a larger size, and an occasional pair that rubs at the heel.5 A Desert Boot reviewer noted that the boot now comes with a leather lining, presumably for structure, which changes how it feels against the foot.3 These complaints come from a small minority, and the overall scores remain high, but they are the complaints of loyal customers, which makes them harder to dismiss.
Reading the range
School shoes Our choice The reason Clarks exists in most households, and still the best reason to go. Lines such as Lorcam Lane are built with a durable leather upper, a padded collar and a grippy thermoplastic sole, and come in three widths, which no supermarket school shoe will offer.3 The linings carry an odour treatment, and the product page names the biocide in full, a piece of candour few parents will read. They are not cheap, and the sales come round regularly enough that nobody need pay full price twice. Have the child measured in a shop first, then buy wherever.
Originals: Desert Boot and Wallabee Our choice The Desert Boot in beeswax leather or suede is the shoe to buy here if you buy one. The crepe sole is the point of the thing and also the main caveat: the review summary says opinions on it divide, as they always have. It is sold in a single standard width, so anyone with broad feet should try before committing.3 The reviews are warm, with caveats about the colour of the suede against the photographs and a fit that some find large. The Wallabee is the stranger, chunkier relation and a matter of taste. The Desert Trek sits between them.
Women’s boots, such as the Orinoco 3 Also considered The everyday women’s boots are the Clarks of popular memory: soft leather, a cushioned footbed, an inside zip for getting in without unlacing, a modest heel. The Orinoco 3 Style comes in standard and wide fittings and its early reviews are very favourable, though one returning customer preferred the older version and found the new sole bulkier.3 These are sensible boots in the best sense. They are also priced at the level of better-made boots from smaller makers, and without the sale they are hard to call a bargain.
Cloudsteppers and Solevana sandals Also considered The comfort range, built around soft foam footbeds that Clarks describes in the language of pillows and clouds.4 The Brinkley sandals and slides are inexpensive and much discounted in the off-season, and the new Solevana styles promise the softest footbed yet. Soft is pleasant for a holiday and a poor guide to support over a long day; foam that cushions also compresses. Buy them as summer shoes and do not expect them to outlast the Desert Boot, which they will not.
Partner brands on the Clarks site Not for us The site now sells other companies’ trainers and sportswear alongside its own, with banners inviting you to buy from brand partners for a discount on Clarks items.6 The difficulty is that these orders sit outside the Clarks returns system: they go back to the partner’s warehouse, on the partner’s timetable, and no Clarks shop will take them.1 The same shoes are available from the brands themselves, usually on simpler terms. We would keep the basket to things with Clarks on the heel.
The business of buying
Standard home delivery costs a few pounds, is free above a threshold, and is quoted at four to five days, which is slow by current standards; at the time of reading a limited-time banner made it free for everyone. Next-day delivery comes by Evri or, for a little more, by DPD seven days a week, and parcels can go to lockers and parcel shops. Collection from any full-price Clarks shop is free.2 Returns must be made within twenty-eight days of receipt, fourteen for sale items, unworn and with proof of purchase. Postal returns carry a charge taken from the refund, exchanges by post are free, and anything taken back to a full-price shop is refunded on the spot.1 Outlet and partner-brand orders follow their own rules. Customer care answers the telephone on weekdays during office hours, and outside them a chatbot named Cyrus does its best.6 Refunds by post are quoted at five to ten days after the warehouse has checked the parcel.
Our verdict
Clarks remains indispensable for one job, fitting children’s feet, and very good at one shoe, the Desert Boot. Around those two fixed points it has built a website that sells other people’s trainers and beauty products, charges for postal returns and keeps its outlet at arm’s length, and the result is a shop that rewards people who walk into it and quietly penalises those who do not. Have the measuring done in person, buy the school shoes and the Desert Boots, and return anything that does not fit to a full-price shop. We recommend Clarks, but in person first and online second.
Others to consider
Start-rite is the obvious rival for children’s shoes, with similar widths and a smaller shop estate.
Schuh sells Clarks Originals alongside most other names you might want, in shops on a great many high streets.
Loake is the place to go for an adult leather shoe that will take a resole, which Clarks’s moulded soles will not.
Sources and notes
- Clarks UK ‘Returns, refunds and exchanges’ page, read October 2026: 28 days from receipt, 14 for sale items; unworn with proof of purchase; postal returns via Evri cost £2.95, deducted from the refund; exchanges free; free returns to full-price UK stores, excluding outlets and concessions; refunds in 5 to 10 days; partner-brand returns go to the partner.↩
- Clarks UK ‘Delivery and collection’ page, read October 2026: standard £4.95, free over £75, 4 to 5 days; Evri next day £6.95; DPD next day £9.95, seven days a week, order by 7pm; free collection from full-price stores. A ‘Free standard delivery, limited time’ banner was showing.↩
- Clarks product pages, read October 2026: Desert Boot Beeswax, 4.2 from 436 reviews, standard G width only, crepe sole, leather lining; Orinoco 3 Style, standard and wide fittings; Lorcam Lane Youth school shoe, F, G and H widths, Microban lining.↩
- Clarks Cloudsteppers collection page, read October 2026: Brinkley sandals and slides; Solevana styles with PillowSoft footbed.↩
- Trustpilot, Clarks, read October 2026: TrustScore 4.6 from over 55,000 reviews, many praising named store staff; complaints include refused outlet returns, delayed orders and templated replies, and a perceived tighter fit.↩
- Clarks contact, discount and navigation pages, read October 2026: telephone Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm; chat assistant Cyrus; £10 off £50 email offer excludes partner sellers; over-55s discount via Gocertify; partner brands and a beauty section in the menus.↩
Filed under the Wardrobe desk