New York City Ballet’s Pointe Shoe Demand | Business Insider posted on the topic

Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

This is how a professional ballerina customizes her point shoes for a show. Destroy them. Basically. Everybody else, it looks like we’re destroying them. Just bang it out a little bit. It’s actually kind of fun. I enjoy it kind of. But after just one day of rehearsing and performing leaps, turns and pirouettes, the shoes will be completely unusable. This isn’t used shoe. That’s why New York City Ballet dancers go through about 7000 pairs every year. And all of them come from freed of London. Which has been one of the world’s leading ballet shoe manufacturers for nearly 80 years. We supply all over the world. There really isn’t a country that we don’t work with in some capacity. Its methods haven’t changed much over the decades. Every single shoe still has to be formed and stitched mostly by hand. But this traditional approach makes it hard to keep up with the nonstop demand from some of the largest ballet companies in the world. We are constantly playing catch up. Now some shoemakers are saying it’s time to update the century old design. There’s a lot of unnecessary pain that modern materials can alleviate, so why do ballerinas go through so many pairs, and why haven’t the shoes changed much in over a century? We went behind the scenes with the New York City Ballet and freed of London. To see how point shoes became such a big business. This is the NFL for ballet. It’s no different than like a football player, except we have to look really pretty. Well, we’re doing it so. The Nutcracker is the New York City Ballet Super Bowl, bringing in about $20 million per season. Rehearsals start only two weeks before opening night. I’m so excited, I’m so excited. We have six weeks of Nutcracker shows. That means ballerinas like Grace Shuffle will likely break in a new pair of shoes every single day during the show’s run. It’s honestly the rehearsals during the day that kill your shoes. We typically run it at least two or three times per rehearsal. When you think about the idea of the amount of things that we do on our toes, it’s not something that humans are supposed to do. By the end of a rehearsal and only two layers, this is what Graces shoe looks like. It’s the fabric on the tip of the box usually goes 1st and then I can see kind of the where and the dirt and the Ras and kind of building up on the inside of the shoe. The New York City Ballet spends nearly $1,000,000 a year buying point shoes for its dancers. And Daniel Wong is the only one keeping track of them all right now I have about. 9000 pairs of shoes in this room. A point shoe has three main sections, the box, the vamp and the Shank, also known as the sole. The box is what makes a point shoe well appoints you. It helps create the illusion of a dancer being on the very tip of their toes. This has a platform right here that the dancer can stand on the vamp covers and supports the toes as they bend. The measurement has to be very precise so that it doesn’t get in the way. The Shank supports the dancers arch while on point. Strength of the Shank can be different depending on what the dancer wants. So really every single piece of this shoe can be customized while a dancer is on point. The pressure on their feet and ankles feels like 12 times their weight. So if the fit of the shoe is even a little bit off, it could be dangerous. You can injure yourself if you’re not wearing the right shoe. You could injure yourself if a shoe is too soft for your foot. So it’s just important to find, you know, a shoe that fits you really well. Hello. How are you? Good. How are you? I’m good. Dancers have preferences. My job is to make sure that they have shoes that they’re comfortable with, but also don’t get them injured. Which one should we start with? We’re going to do a 4 1/2 pint. There’s a feel secure. I wouldn’t mind raising it. I wouldn’t say no to that. See, I like that that’s so much. Sometimes they’re OK. Finding the perfect fit can take years, and answers go through many trial pairs before landing on the right one. It’s so much better. I feel better in them and kind of see there’s like a 90�� angle and how to show it, but there’s like a 90�� angle. That’s like one of the customizations that I really like just cause standing on it and then rolling up to point is feels a lot better. I’ve already had a few customers come in with these specs, meaning like the size and how short I wanted it. Which one is that? This is without cutting it. This is the four and a half hour and a half, but the but this trial pair still isn’t perfect. I can do this. It’s a little bit too loose. She’ll be able to wear them, but you know, they’re not, they’re not the best, it’s not the best fit. While Grace waits for her customs, she has to modify her trial shoes on her own. Everyone’s feet are different, so everybody kind of has a unique thing that they do to their shoes. You could find all sorts of tools and graces, dance bag, rubbing alcohol. This is to break in the shoes. This is Jack glue basically. So we put this in the tips of our shoes to keep the shoes hard. This is what makes it all possible and I go through this quite quickly. Grace can spend 30 minutes breaking in her shoes. Destroy them. Basically, to everybody else, it looks like we’re destroying them. I’ll stick the scissors in and then just. RIP it apart and then I cut it. So I hold up my heel down and then there we go. That was pretty good. Scraping the bottom of the point shoes makes them less slippery. Even though it’s a lot to do, this is what works best for me. That is what a new pair of shoes kind of looks like. The boots are ready. I do feel a little bit bad because I know they worked so hard on them so. Yeah. The New York City Ballet buys all its shoes from Freed of London, one of the first companies to customize shoes to dancers feet back in 1929. Mr. Freed had been appoints you maker for another company and he wasn’t very satisfied with how the shoes were being produced before Mr. Freed the point she was very much one size, one with so a dancer had to squeeze their foot into it and he came up with this concept which seemed so normal today of making different with fittings. They all start with stapling a leather sole to a mold. And this is where the consistency comes in here. Just make sure they’re all the same. Shoemakers like Alan Doherty make custom shoes for specific dancers. He’s currently assigned to more than 600 ballerinas. He is really one of our most popular makers. But the Factory only has 24 shoe makers who make customs. And they supply some of the largest ballet companies in the world, including the Royal Ballet in London, the American Ballet Theatre and the Paris Opera Ballet. Constantly playing catch up many of our points you makers. Their work schedule is booked right through to the end of 2026. When a maker retires, we start planning nearly two years in advance where we start to look at what other makers are similar in their characteristic of shoe. And looking at how we can transfer and move dancers from one maker to the other. Still, Freed manages to pump out about 2500 pairs a week. Most of the process is done by hand. That’s a messy bit. The founder of the company, Friedrich Freed himself created the pace that makes up the box, which the company keeps secret. It’s basically flowered water and a few secret ingredients, which I’m not allowed to tell. It’s like putting your hand in porridge. The paste is what makes the shoes so malleable, adapting to the exact shape of a dancer’s foot, but it’s also why they wear out so quickly. Alan can make 34 pairs in a single day, so everyone makes different amounts. Something 28, some make 30. Something 32 out of 30 fours, one does 41. Putting in the pleats is the hardest and most crucial step. What does consist of twist and pull? That’s what’s gives him the strength to peace. We try and be presented as best we can.