Did you know that ballet slippers were not the very first shoes used for ballet? Originally, back in King Louis IV’s court, female dancers wore a short heel. It wasn’t until 1730 when a woman named Marie Camargo wanted to do more complicated steps and bigger jumps so she removed the heels from her shoes and invented the ballet slipper. This was the first innovation on the footwear of dance but was certainly not the last! Let’s take a stroll through the evolution of Pointe Shoes from their creation to the latest experiments.
“Flying Machines”
In the 1790s, the lead choreographer for the Russian Imperial Ballet, a French-Swedish dancer named Charles Didelot, designed the beginnings of a pointe shoe that allowed dancers to appear as if they were floating on their toes. His original title for them, "flying machines".
In the 1820s, Amalia Brugnoli introduced dancers and audiences to the first of pointe technique. Marie Taglioni is said to be the first to master the art. At this point in time, the shoe would have been only more firm around the toes, not including what we would call a shank today so we’ve got to give a round of applause for the sheer strength of her feet and ankles!
Paper Mache
In the late 1800s, Italian shoemakers began to reinforce pointe shoes with the beginnings of shanks and boxes (See parts of a pointe shoe below). The shank was made of cardboard and leather. The boxes were made of newspaper and glues, which is where we get the nickname of paper mache shoes! 
You can see we are getting closer to what Pointe shoes look like today. Our next innovator was Anna Pavlova, a true Russian Prima Ballerina who had long, narrow feet with flexible arches. She decided she needed more support from the shoe so she found ways to harden the leather shank and box, lengthened the vamp and darned the heck out of the platform! She enlisted a cobbler by the name of Salvatore Capezio to make shoes for her whole company for their tour to the United states in 1910. And thus, Capezio became the first international brand of pointe shoe!
Competing Shoemakers
Capezio - Founded 1887 in New York, USA
Throughout the 1900s, the technique of ballet became more and more demanding for the body, more and more complex movement, more and more impressive to the audience. As demands were put on dancers, so were demands on the shoes. Pointe shoe makers strove to make shoes even stronger, making changes in the shape of certain parts to provide more stability and more elegant lines. This is when pointe shoes became what most of them look like today.
Freed - Founded 1929 in London, England
Bloch - Founded 1932 in Sydney, Australia
Chacott - Founded 1950 in Tokyo Japan
Sansha - Founded 1982 in Paris, France
So Danca - Founded 1986 in Sao Paolo Brazil
Grishko - Founded 1989 in Moscow, Russia
R-Class - Foounded 1991 in Moscow, Russian
Gaynor Minden - Founded 1993 in New York, USA
Russian Pointe (American branch of R-Class) - Founded 1994 in Chicago, USA
The Next Big Step
In 1995, Gaynor Minden made a huge change to their shoes: the shank was made of a fiber-glass composite that gave the shoe a much longer life. (Having danced in many shoe brands including Gaynors, I can indeed say that they last at least 3 times longer than most pointe shoes.) While Gaynor Minden received flack about it back then, its a very popular brand today.
All brands in the last 25 years have released more models of shoes to accomodate more dancers and the differences in our feet. Dancers with longer toes usually need a longer Vamp in the shoe. Dancers with hyper-archy feet may need a harder shank for support. Someone with a high arch may need taller Wings. The truth is, no two people in the world have identical feet - they're kinda like finger prints in that way. It's good that brands have many options so that each dancer can find what looks best, feels good and is the safest for their feet.
Suffolk - Founded 2000 in New York, USA
ACT - Founded 2004 in Prague, Czech Republic
Pointe Shoes of the Future
Our last stop on the tour is ACT! A company seeking to revolutionize the sustainability of our footwear in the ballet world. In 2017 ACT debuted the 3D printed pointe shoe that would enable dancers to have shoes that were A) personalized to their feet, and B) that wouldn’t wear out, period.
For most of the ballet world, this was a wild crazy idea but as we get further into the 21st century, dance companies are realizing that we have to be more responsible with our materials. When you think about it, it's ridiculous that every professional dancer can go through several pairs of pointe shoes in a week and just throws them away with no way to recycle any part of them.
Are ACT pointe shoes ready to take over the ballet world? No. I think it’s a great step in a direction that we have long needed to go. Will I be buying a pair? Not yet. I think they have a long way to go but I am excited to see how they evolve and change our world of ballet!