“Miss Haley, which pointe shoes should I get?” (2024)

I’ve decided to write up this post because of the amazing amount of times I’ve heard this question, and maybe it’ll help some other confused parents and students out there.

Here’s how pointe shoes work: A company decides to make pointe shoes, so they develop their own shape, hardness, material bank, and signature look. Bloch shoes are a little… well… blocky. Grishko has narrow heels and wider metatarsals, and tapered toes. Capezio is round-ish. Russian Pointes are very very very hard and usually fit someone with a super narrow foot and a high arch.

That being said, there are many little variations in each shoe. For instance, here is a list of all the different components of a pointe shoe:

• Length
• Width
• heel height - how high they sit on your heel
• height on the instep: how high they come up on the side of your foot
• shank hardness - how hard they are to bend
• shank style - full, 3/4, half, demi-pointe, super soft, graduated shank, etc.
• vamp height – how high they come up over your toes
• wing – how high/low/hard/soft they are on the sides of your metatarsals
• platform – the flat part you balance on
• drawstring – some have them, some don’t, sometimes they’re elastic, sometimes they’re cotton…
• vamp cut – u-shaped, v-shaped, square-ish…

I could keep going. but I won’t.

Not only that, but each brand of pointe shoe (the company) has different styles of shoes within the company. For instance, Grishko makes an Elite, Maya, Maya II, Nova, Ulanova, Ulanova II, 2007, pro-2007, pro-flex 2007, and a few more I can’t recall off the top of my head. Bloch, Capezio, Russian Pointes, they all do the same thing. So not only do you have all the above choices, but you have the slightly different shoe shapes within each company.

This means there are hundreds of thousands of different possibilities.

And (not that I’m trying to freak you out) sometimes one shoe fits one foot, and another shoe fits another foot! Luckily there is no Right or Left until you break them in, so if you buy two pairs, you get two pairs.

Lastly (I know, right??) sometimes the padding you use changes how the shoe fits! I have to wear a paper towel in my left Maya I shoe, and a bit of lambs wool in my Gaynor Minden shoe to make them fit right. I had one girl whose shoes fit with Ouch Pouches, but not Gellows.

I’m trying to make this very clear:

This is why you MUST go to a fitter until you find that perfect combination.

(I feel like bold, centered, italics, caps lock, and underlined should do it, but let me know if you need more.)

If you don’t, you could seriously injure your feet! Dancing en pointe is dangerous unless you do it right, and you can’t do it right with a pair of shoes that don’t fit.

Usually, for the average dancer, there are about 3-7 different kinds of pointe shoes that will fit them. They should try on as many pairs as possible, and pick the one pair that:

• fit the best (no squished toes, no sinking in, no sickling or twisting)
• make their feet look prettiest (arch, toes, vamp, etc)
• make the dancer feel most secure and confident en pointe (very important)

Below is the paper I give my students before they get fitted.

Pointe shoe fitting requirements

Student:

• Please only go to one of the following stores: Dance Max Dancewear (Marietta, GA), The Sock Basket (Asheville, NC or Greenville, SC) [**obviously if you live in a different area you’ll go to different shoe stores. Find out which stores have the best fitters. An inexperienced fitter is just as bad as a bad pair of shoes.]
• Call the store before you go! Some stores only fit by appointment, and some require you to be there by a certain time.
• Shoes should fit tight around the foot. They will be hard and uncomfortable, but they should not cause a pinching or searing pain.
• Your toes should be secure in the box, but not scrunched up against the bottom or sides of the shoe
• The outside sole should end right before the edge of your heel. Avoid getting a shoe that’s shank extends the whole length of your foot if at all possible, unless it’s the best fit.
• Cut your toenails two or three days before your fitting. If the skin is still tender, use a little bit of rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and rub the skin to dry and toughen it. [I’m going to highlight this, it’s very important!]
• Do some warm-ups before you get fitted, or wear tennis shoes for a few hours. Don’t fit shoes with cold feet (dancing makes your feet swell, and if you get a fitting with cold feet, they may not fit when you try to dance in them)

For the fitter:

• No Gaynor Minden shoes please! [for notes about this, see my post about Gaynor's.]
• Fit the shoe for their foot now, not for their foot when it grows. It is okay if they grow out of their shoe.
• They are to use Gellows gell toe pads (Pillows for Pointe) unless their shoe fits best with a different pad. Lamb’s wool is not required.
• No super-soft shanks or super-hard shanks. [this is for beginner pointe students, so if you need a harder or softer shank, disregard this.]
• Inch-wide ribbon and single-band elastic (unless their foot requires criss-crossed)
• Bunheads pointe shoe sewing kit or another similar kit with waxed thread and heavy-duty needle
• The student is responsible for sewing their own shoes. Please do not sew their shoes for them.

I hope this helps you choose which shoes you want, and I hope you decide to go to a fitter the next time you need pointe shoes! It’s worth the drive/retail cost! not only that, a lot of stores will offer discounts on shoes if you dance with a studio, or if you buy a certain number of shoes, or something like that. Ask about discounts. Thanks, and Happy Dancing!
~Miss Haley