Pointe Shoe Rewind: A Brief History of Ballet’s Signature Shoe
Maria Taglioni in La Sylphide. London, 1840s.
In the fashion world, pointe shoes have been having a moment. From brands like Sandy Liang to Maison Margiela, the centuries-old shoe has found its way into everyday life through signature details like pink satin ribbons and box-shaped toes. But pointe shoes are anything but a recent phenomenon; despite their current aesthetic popularity, their origins date back as early as the 1730s.
Before pointe shoes existed, heeled ballet slippers were the norm for ballet dancers. This changed in the 1730s when Marie Camargo, a dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet, removed the heels from her shoes, leaving only the slippers. This alteration allowed for increased mobility and nimble footwork. Camargo is widely considered a turning point in the evolution of the pointe shoe, as she was the inventor of the ballet slipper we know and use today. Soon after her innovation, ballet technique improved rapidly, including more leaps and quicker allegro. With these advancements came the desire for dance to go above and beyond– literally!
In 1796, Charles Didelot’s “flying machine” used wire rigging to lift dancers into the air on stage, transforming them into ethereal apparitions. This spurred new feats in balletic movement, namely the focus on increasing physical elevation through dance. In 1823, Amalia Bruglioni introduced pointe work by using her arms and foot strength to raise herself up onto her toes in Armand Vestris’s ballet La Fée et le Chevalier. Her shoes had ribbons to support her ankles and were slightly reinforced with stitching around the toe but this offered little support in achieving sustained elevation. But, Bruglioni did inspire an Italian ballerina, Maria Taglioni, to follow in her footsteps nearly ten years later.
In 1832 Taglioni was the first ballerina to dance a full length ballet en pointe. She premiered in La Sylphide, choreographed by her father Fillipo Taglioni, and played a sylph who floats about the stage on the tips of her toes. La Sylphide, a hallmark of the Romantic Ballet period, remains a fixture in the classical repertory today. Although there was still no hardened toe i.e. “box” as we refer to it today, Taglioni’s shoes were slightly sturdier than her predecessors as they consisted of a leather sole with cotton wool padding for her toes. This model was continually improved upon well into the late 19th century as shoe makers and dancers added things like flour paste, newspaper, glue, and stitching/darning to the tips of their shoes. All of these methods are still used in order to support the foot when en pointe, to extend the lifespan of the shoes, and to aid the overall health of dancer’s feet.
In the 1900’s Anna Pavlova, Prima Ballerina with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, added more leather to the sole of her shoes (also referred to as the “shank”) to support her weak feet and altered the tips of the shoe to be flatter which provided a larger platform to stand on. When Pavlova came to the United States in 1910, she worked with the Metropolitan Opera’s pointe shoe maker Salvatore Capezio to create the first pointe shoe brand. Capezio pointe shoes are still sold today and were my first brand of pointe shoe when I began dancing en pointe (so wholesome!). As time progressed throughout the 20th century, so did the technology of pointe shoe construction. Shoes were refined to accommodate more demanding technical requirements in ballet repertoire and were made increasingly suitable through wider boxes and harder shanks.
Today dancers can choose from a wide variety of brands and customize every facet of their shoes to maximize comfort, stability, and performance. Modern pointe shoes, such as Gaynor Minden’s and Act, incorporate synthetic polymers to improve shock absorption, reduce noise, and increase durability—meeting the ever-evolving needs of the ballet dancer. Brands like Freed, Grishko and Bloch meld new with traditional by using hessian and paper, water based-glue, and satin to create their shoes. Whether dancers choose to utilize newer brands and materials or stick to more traditional, organic shoes is entirely their choice and makes every pair of feet dancing upon stage unique. If you wish to learn even more about pointe shoes, take a look at the process of pointe shoe making at the Freed factory in London here.