Pointe shoes: how ballerina shoes appeared

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

We are all used to seeing ballet dancers fluttering on the tips of their pointe shoes. However, few people thought about the history of this elegant shoe. About how pointe shoes appeared and what a ballerina's shoes are, and will be discussed in this article.

Beginning of ballet shoes

Typically, the word "pointe shoes" most people think of hard satin shoes with narrow ribbons tied tightly around the ballerina's foot. However, it would be logical to assume that ballerinas did not always wear such shoes.

Naturally, at the very beginning of the birth of ballet, there could be no question of professional pointe shoes. Many people know the name of the ballerina's shoes, but few know where this concept came from. The very name of this particular type of shoe comes from the French word sur les pointes, which means "to dance with your fingertips." And indeed, initially the ballerinas danced exclusively barefoot, standing on the tops of their fingers. However, this method was extremely traumatic, since the foot had a huge load, which led to constant dislocations,sprains and other injuries of the joints and muscles. So the idea was born to create special support shoes.

First copies

What were the first pointe shoes like? A photo of such specimens is below. For the first time this type of footwear was created at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Italy became famous for their invention. As the initial pointe shoes, ordinary shoes were used, in which soft fabric was inserted. This approach helped to avoid injury and excessive stress on the foot.

Later, hard leather sandals were worn as dance shoes, which were fastened to the foot with sewn-on straps.

Modern pointe shoes

For the first time in ballerina's shoes, similar to real pointe shoes, put on in 1830 the dancer Maria Taglioni. This granddaughter of hereditary dancers, famous for her ancient surname, first appeared on stage during a performance called Zephyr and Flora. Fulfilling her assigned female role, Maria barely touched the ground with her tiny silk slippers. This release made a splash. Not endowed by nature with special female beauty, the dancer completely amazed the audience with her dancing abilities and, most importantly, in a thoughtful way. She chose for the performance exactly those hard shoes with a special seal in the toe area, which subsequently had such a success in the ballet world. These were the same pointe shoes. Everyone can see the photo of their owner.

However, this type of shoe is no less popularanother famous person did it - the wife of the commander Napoleon Josephine. She preferred to wear ballet flats that looked like dance shoes. They were small slippers made of satin fabric, which were attached to the foot with ribbons. In the era of romanticism, such casual and light shoes were in great demand among fashionistas and socialite divas. Among art historians, it is believed that it was these shoes that later became the prototype of pointe shoes known to us.

In Russia, the first ballerina to start dancing in these shoes was Avdotya Istomina. Now ballet, pointe shoes and dancers who perform in them are integral concepts.

Creating pointe shoes

Ballet shoes seem to be extremely simple and easy to make shoes, but this is not true.

Modern pointe shoes consist of 54 elements. Each pair of such shoes must strictly fit the dancer's foot, which avoids unnecessary injury and stress. The selection of shoes is also carried out individually.

Each shoe consists of three components. This is the upper of the pointe, which consists of several layers of satin and is covered on the inside with a lining fabric, as well as a rigid, inflexible sole made of natural leather and a place where the fingers are placed. This part is shaped like a box of several tightly glued layers of fabric. It is the high requirements for dance pointe shoes that explain the fact that, despite the high level of production automation, most of the assembly of these shoes is done by hand. As a rule, wet glued pointe shoesleft on a specially adapted block, after which they are processed with tools and sewn together with a strong thread soaked in paraffin solution. To harden, ballerina shoes are left to dry overnight at a temperature of forty to fifty degrees.

All shoes differ in shape, durability, wear duration and are selected individually for each dancer.