Official EMC Shoe Yourself Thread (2021 Edition)

I've been in a semi-professional ballet company for the last four years. These are my shoes!

Top row: Three pairs of flat ballet shoes, oldest on the left and newest on the right. Two pairs of jazz shoes, oldest on the left. Far right is my one and only pair of tap shoes because I only started tap within the last year.

Bottom row: Pointe shoes! On the far left is my very first pair of pointe shoes. The pair on the far right is my current pair of pointe shoes, although I'm planning to get a new pair before my performance at the end of this month.

Do they hurt?:
Yes. Dancers do different things to make them less painful, including taping their toes and using wool to cushion them. I use gel toe pads that are hidden underneath my tights.

Do they damage your feet?:
If you're doing things improperly or not warming up before using pointe shoes, there is risk of causing more permanent damage to your feet. The main damage that I have experienced is bruised toenails and blisters. Dancers stretch their feet a lot to achieve a nice arched look that helps them stay up on their pointe shoes -- if done incorrectly, there is also a lot of room for injury here.

Brand:
Two of the pairs of pointe shoes pictured are the different styles of the Capezio brand. The rest are all the same size and style of Bloch shoe, because that's the only type I've found that stays on my feet.

How long they last:
One pair of pointe shoes typically lasts me through 3-5 months of dancing roughly 10hrs per week. They start out being very hard, but over time they wear down to the point(e) that there are holes in the toe area. However, the length of time they last varies greatly depending on the dancer. There are new dancers who go through a pair per week because they aren't using proper technique. There are also full professional ballerinas who go through multiple pairs in a single performance because of how much they dance and the way that they break them in.

Cost:
Pointe shoe cost depends a lot on the brand, where you're buying them from, etc. Most shoes cost somewhere around $70-$115 from my experience.

You may have noticed something a little strange in the row of pointe shoes. Yes, those are ducks on my shoes.

Last year, as my pointe shoes wore down, they started making a quacking/squeaking sound. I can imagine to others that it was quite a comical sight to watch me dancing with my shoes going "quaaaack!" with every movement, because they started calling me a duck. The other dancers even gave me a stuffed duck as a birthday gift! I painted them so that the life of my duck shoes would live on.

@Krysyy - boots? *wink wink*

Reg... Regular shoes? Do these count?


In all seriousness, here are the three pairs of shoes that I wear most often.

Size 6 women's, which translates to a size 4 in pointe shoes.