Welcome to Fit Tip Friday, our new column where pointe shoe fitters share their go-to advice. First up, Casey Noble—the founder of Misfitters pointe shoe consultancy—shares that Coco Chanel’s advice to always take off the last thing you put on applies to pointe shoe fitting as well. —Emily May, Editor, Dance Retailer News.
Have you ever heard people say that when you’re going out and putting on all of your accessories, take off the last thing you put on? I find that advice very helpful for pointe shoe fitting. If you think a particular shoe model should work for a dancer, but something is off, have the dancer take something out of it.
I had a dancer who for many years was wearing a regular toe spacer, a pinky spacer, and a toe pad in her pointe shoes. The pinky spacer was the last thing she’d added to the equation. So, when I was fitting her and convinced a shoe was right despite issues, I had her take out the pinky spacer. It made a world of difference.
A lot of dancers have excessive padding in an attempt to fill out extra space in a shoe, or to reduce pain. Padding itself is designed to make a shoe fit closer to the foot, not necessarily for comfort. Some fitters will often try to address issues by adding many kinds of padding inside a shoe, but, ultimately, too much will skew the shape of the foot and compromise fit.
So, if you feel the shoe is good and you’re not quite sure what the issue is, fiddle with the padding. Take out the last thing the dancer put on. It usually helps.
Former dancer Casey Noble is a pointe shoe fitter based in New York City. After cutting his teeth working for Bloch and Capezio, he founded Misfitters pointe shoe consultancy in 2023.