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t's Saturday morning in Covent Garden, central London,
in Freed's flagship dancewear store. One by one, the girls
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come through the door, straight posture and swept-back hair
betraying their dancer status, all looking for one thing: pointe
shoes. There's the nervous first-timer, the adult excited about
returning to ballet, the girl with an audition next week and
the vocational student on a quest for a quieter shoe. 'You're always
sffMng to find the perfect pair of shoes,' she says. Down the road at
Bloch, the ritual is repeated. Eleven-year-old Sophia is buying her first
ever pair of pointes. 'I've been looking forward to it for a long time,' she
says. 'So I can do moves I never thought I could do before.' Her hands
on the barre, she rises straight up, 'It feels rea1ly cool to be up there,
suspended!' she beams.
If you were to distill ballet down to a single, iconic image, it would
probably be a pointe shoe. A satin-sheened coral-coloured talisman,
perched on its toe. As a young child you can have a diaphanous skirt to
swish, a baby tutu if you must, but the pointe shoe is only for serious
dancers, it's the first step towards being a real ballerina.
'It's the ultimate achievement in ba11et,' says Sophie Don, who
took up dance as an adult and always longed to go on pointe. 'It's a
reward for all the years of hard work. You really have to earn them.
The first time I got up on pointe and bourr6ed, I was just in tears, I was
so happy.' She adds, 'and then the tears became about the pain.'
Will it hurt? When's the right time to do it? Which shoes should
I buy? Going up on polnte for the first time is fraught with questions.
But there are no blanket answers, because every dancer is different.
Knowing when you're ready to start is based on a combinatlon of
factors, says Heulwen Price, senior lecturer in ballet education at the
RAD. 'The age of the child, the state of the bone development, the
overall strength of the body, the length of the training they've had, their
body weight and also the attitude of the student,' she lists.
As a rough guide, the earliest age to go on pointe is rr, although
Freed's lead fitter, Sophie Simpson, says 12 or 13 is more common. 'It
should be the onset ofpuberty, not before,'she says. For a child who
is serious about ba1let, four years is the minimum length of training to
have under their be1t, but ifthey're only taking class once a week, four
years won't be enough. In young bodies, the bones are yet to harden.
'Starting too early can cause enormous damage,' says Price. 'There's
absolutely no reason at all not to start later.'
The ideal foot for pointe work is said to have the first three toes
the same length, but that's just the luck of the genetic draw. You can
work to strengthen your feet, though, with a resistance band, especially
if you have high arches, which tend to be weaker. It's not only the
strength of the foot that's important, but the whole body particularly
the core. 'The test for readiness is to do a series of relev6s devant on
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demi pointe,'says Price. 'Sixteen on one leg, in the centre, holding
the body with securiry and balance. When they can do that they're
probabiy ready for pointe work,' she says. Noei Amend, who has been
fitting pointe shoes for 37 years in his two shops in Colorado, asks his
customers to hold a relev6 for a whole minute, off the barre. 'The shoes
don't do the dancing, the dancer does the dancing,'he says, and that
dancer has to be prepared mentally as well as physically. 'There was a
girl we sent home without shoes because she couldn't focus. She was
ready physically but there was no concentration.'
Once you've passed the relev6 test, then it's time to buy some
pointe shoes. 'That's a monumental occasion,'says Royal Ballet dancer
Francesca Hayr,vard, who remembers getting her first pair. 'It's bigger
than your first bra,' she says. But she admits it can also be a confusing
experience. 'I remember going up on pointe and they said, "How does
it feel?" Arrd I remember thinking, well, it's kind of painfui. You don't
know what it's meant to feel like. Now I know what's normal, I realise it
was actually quite painfu1. It's a weird experience.'
The most important advice is to find a professional fitter - pointe
shoes are not an item you should buy on the internet. At Dancia
International, Emma Campbe11, former professional dancer turned
pointe shoe fitter lets me try on some pairs to remind me of the
sensation from my own dancing days. I slide my feet into the pink
slippers and Campbell expertly eyes up my feet and asks me to p1i6.
It's a strange sensation, the pressure on your enclosed foot like a tight,
slightly suffocating hug. I waddle over to the barre and rise tentatively
onto pointe. I can reaily feel my big toe meeting the floor. That's how
it's supposed to be, Campbell tells me.
The first pair digs into the side of my foot; in the next I find my
ankles tipping over; in another, the weight drives painfully down into
my toe; but in one shoe, I feel supported, the pressure even across the
whole foot so I can take my mind to my muscles rather than just feeling
the ouch in my toe.
Some tips for a fitting: make sure you cut your toenails short;
wear comfortable clothes that you can p1i6 in; and don't be afraid to
ask questions. 'It's so important to be able to communicate with a fitter,'
says Campbell. 'Try not to be too nerwous.'
There are so many variations in sryle, you might want to get
acquainted with the 1ingo. The 'shank'is the sole and comes in different
strengths; the'box'is the hard case around the toes, made usually of
layers of burlap, paper and glue, a bit like papier mach6; the 'wing' is
the stiffened side of the box; the 'platform' is the tip (although there's
no actual block or platform in there, as people sometimes think); and
the'vamp'is the front of the shoe that covers the toes.
Every fitter has a slightly different process, but will all look
essentially for the same things. The toes should lie flat, not cienched or
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jammed in, ugly sister-sty1e, and should be fu11y covered by the vamp
- no toe cleavage. The shoe should hold snug across the knuckle where
the metatarsals meet the toes, but not squeeze so much as to inhibit
movement. When you p1i6 and the foot spreads, the big toe should
touch the end of the shoe, but when the foot is placed on polnte, there's
likely to be a litt1e blt of fabric spare at the heel - that's ok. The shank
should 1lne up straight with the sole of the foot, and no higher (and if
it twists to one side you probably have the wrong width) and the vamp
should stand vertical. 'When thefre not professionally fitted, what we
generally see is that shoes are too short and too wide,' says Amend. 'I
think what they're looking at is cosmetic value.'
At Bloch, Sophia is trying on her fourth pair. 'This is taking longer
than I thought it wou1d,' she says, matter-of-factly Each brand makes
multiple styles, and in Colorado, Amend keeps 3o different brands in
stock (you can also alter certain elements to make a bespoke shoe) so
that's a lot of possibilities: but when you get it right, 'the shoe becomes
an extension of the body,' says Simpson.
While most shoes are still made with traditional materials, there
have been advances in technology. US brand Gaynor Minden uses a
flexible poiymer in the shank and box, and shock-absorbing cushioning.
Even among more traditional makers, shoes have changed gradually
to suit modern dancers, becoming softer, and don't need the violent
breaking in they used to - no bashing or hammering. The heat and
sweat of your foot will do most of the work.
You'11 stl11 need to do some prep though, sewing on ribbons, and
perhaps elastic. Tahe advice from your fitter on where to attach them to
get the angle right. Traditionally you would darn the platform for extra
grip -'YouTube is amazing!' a once-baffled, now-expert mum at Freed
te11s me - but these days you can also buy a sma11 suede patch to glue
onto the end of the shoe. Shoes only come in one colour per brand, all
peachy-pink, but some dancers use pancake to better match them to
thelr skin colour.
Then there's prepping the foot. The o1d-school advice is to
soak the toes in surglcal spirit to harden the skin, but a new school
of thought suggests moisturising so much that your skin stays more
elastic. Lambswool is an old favourite for cushioning, some dancers
tape their toes to stop the skin splitting, and lfyou have a large space
between your big toe and the next, a ge1 toe-spacer can help keep digits
aligned and avoid bunions.
Then there are silicon toe pads that slip over your toes. Some
teachers dislike toe pads, but all of the professionals I speak to are in
favour. 'You'd be a fool not to protect your feet,' says Amend. 'You think
performers don't wear toe caps? They do.' Just beware of gel pads that
are too bulky The shoe should fit without the toe pad in it, and there
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shouldn't be much padding underneath the toes, otherwise you won't
be able to articulate the joints. 'I always say it's like trying to pick a
pencil up while having an oven glove on,'says Simpson.
Once you've got your shoes you'11 be raring to get up and go, but
pointe work starts s1ow1y, usually just ro minutes at the end of class.
Heulwen Price recommends practising walking normally in your shoes,
and then on three-quarter pointe before doing any dancing. 'Be carefu1,'
says Francesca Hay'ward. 'One step at a time. It's the long game.'
VVhen you think about it, dancing on pointe is a crazy thing to do.
'It's the most extreme position the foot can be in,' says Sophie Don, who
has now trained as a fitter herself. 'It's shrouded in mythology and people
say it's meant to hurt, but that's not entirely true.'With good fitting and
good teaching'pointe work should be such a joy'says Price. 'It's great
fun, to be lighter, more ethereal; it's every litt1e girl's dream.'