The construction of these shoes cannot be faulted. Beautiful leather and impeccably made.
However, the sizing is bizarre. I measure 9.5D on a Brannock, yet am a bit smaller than a 9D on the Rancourt sizing chart. I typically size down half a size for loafers too, and never require an E width. Following some advice, I opted to go for my usual loafer size and purchased a 9D. Given that these loafers are said to run large, my main concern was that they would be too big.
However, to say these loafers were small/narrow is an understatement. The loafers were so tight that I struggled to even get my foot into them. When measured against the sole of all my other loafers in 9D (including a different pair of Rancourt loafers, the pinch penny loafers) these are clearly far smaller in both length and width. Initially I thought I had been given a much smaller size that had been mistakenly marked as a 9D, but Rancourt assured me this could not have happened.
Given the cost of exchanging them from Australia was nearly the same price as the shoes themselves, I decided to persist with them in the hope that they were the correct size and would stretch out. While they have stretched a bit, they are still tiny. I am wary about sizing up too as it seems odd to have to size up in a shoe that you are recommended to size down for. Very confusing.