Fit Tip Friday is DRN’s monthly column where pointe shoe fitters share their go-to advice. For this installment, Rob Ferguson—Bloch’s EU/UK market manager, who oversees the brand’s London flagship store, fits dancers, and trains fitters across the UK and Europe—returns to share how he works with dancers who arrive interested in Bloch’s most popular pointe shoe styles, and how he helps them evaluate whether those choices are the right match for their individual feet. —Emily May, editor, Dance Retailer News
Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s right for a dancer. A common situation is someone coming in and saying, “A dancer at my studio or in my company wears this style of shoe and I want to try it too.” Then I have to explain: “That dancer might have long, square toes, while you have more tapered, narrow, shorter toes—so those two won’t necessarily work in the same shoe.”
It’s about describing the features of the shoe to the dancer from a product perspective, and why those features may or may not suit their foot. If they’re still keen, we’ll absolutely try it. I’ll just explain what I think might happen, or suggest alternatives I believe could work better. Sometimes the shoe surprises us and works better than expected; other times it doesn’t—but at least the dancer has experienced it rather than just imagining it.
There’s always a tendency for dancers to lean towards bestsellers or popular shoes of the moment. Even if I don’t think a shoe will work for someone, it can still be useful to try it as part of fitting research. When Bloch launches new styles commercially, we test them on a wide range of feet in-store during our daily fittings to understand where they work best. There’s the theory of the product—but the reality of seeing it on different feet is something else entirely.
Rob Ferguson is the EU/UK market manager for Bloch. He oversees the running of the brand’s flagship store in London and provides professional pointe shoe fittings for dancers. Ferguson leads seminars on fitting, and trains wholesale clients and new employees in Bloch’s sister stores across Europe. You can find out more about him in this DRN article.