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Meet your maker: dancers and cobblers share a love affair with pointe shoes.

Article Excerpt
Pink satin and ribbons. The look of the pointe shoe has remained steady for decades. Still, designers are always searching for ways to improve its construction. Leo's Dancewear came out with a split-sole pointe shoe. Prima Soft has created the "perfect placement toe box." Components have been added to aid in noise reduction. But even with the assistance of modern machinery and materials, most pointe shoes are still entirely handmade. The process isn't easy, either. The people responsible for the shoes are highly-skilled craftsmen, injection mold specialists, or masters in stitchery. The work is physically demanding. Cobblers have suffered repetitive stress injuries, back and neck pain, cuts, and bruises. Some work six days a week. Often ignored, cobblers tend to be approached only when a dancer is unhappy with her shoe.

Few things are more important to a ballerina than how her shoe fits. Nothing is more important to a cobbler or shoe designer. Like a dancer developing her technique, cobblers spend hours, even years perfecting their craft. Some say that ballerinas and their cobbiers, or "makers," have a symbiotic relationship. Though it's rare for a shoe to be made from start to finish by one person, chances are you know a dancer who only wears shoes by her maker. She knows him simply by number, letter, or symbol-markings originally devised by manufacturers as a way to maintain quality and keep track of...

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