Get to the Pointe — pointe shoe fitting for flexible feet

Josephine reviews and compares Gaynor Minden's newest development, Lyra! After the closure of Gaynor Minden’s factories in America and their transition to Europe, a lot of changes occurred within the brand. Now we have two beautiful shoes, Europa and Lyra. Gaynor Minden uses a specific system for their pointe shoes that contain many specs including 5 different box shapes determining how tapered or broad the shoes are, as well as three different widths for the widest part of your foot ranging from narrow, medium and wide. With both the Lyra and Europa you also have an option for a high...

Josephine reviews the newest synthetic pointe shoe from Nikolay, the StarPointe! Made off of the SmartPointe last, the Nikolay StarPointe is generous across the metatarsal, has a slightly lower crown and more generous box, as well as a platform that is wide and flat making it easy to balance on.  The StarPointe features a traditional box and a thermo-formable shank made out of synthetic material that comes in three strengths, soft-flexible, medium-flexible, and hard-flexible. Due to the synthetic material within the shank, the StarPointe has the potential to last longer than a traditional pointe shoe. The StarPointe has a slightly...

After many moons & many comments, it's finally here: Pointe shoe fitter reacts to rhythmic gymnastics! We love that ballet can cross over into many disciplines. One of the most obvious and daring is rhythmic gymnastics. According to Wikipedia, and unlike its better known counter part, artistic gymnastics, "Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform on a floor with an apparatus: hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon and rope." And there are some moments where dancers are so athletic that they reach and climb on top of their toes! Of course, Josephine has some feelings and reactions about this. We're just...

This is a dancer's worst nightmare. And confirmation of an age old superstition that dancing en pointe will break feet. Pointe shoes are meant to be a tool to help you dance en pointe. However, the wrong fit can prove harmful. Injuries and outdated fitting methods are the reason why we exist. To keep dancers safe and dancing for longer. Josephine discusses the rehab pointe shoe she picked for a dancer who broke several metatarsals, part of her lower leg, and has achilles issues.  Rehab pointe shoes are not often a dancer's 'forever shoe,' but for the time being, it...

Cheese grater and pointe shoes? What? This week, Josephine reacted to Maria Khoreva's pointe shoe preparation. And yes, it includes a cheese grater. Khoreva is first soloist of the Mariinsky Ballet in Russia. Even if you didn't know her name, if you love ballet, there's a high chance that you've at least seen her picture. Josephine was pretty surprised to see that Maria is in a Bloch stock shoe. Often times, professionals will have custom shoes based on stock shoe models. But even with some changes made at the factory level, pro dancers often still manually adjust and make changes...