Many fashionistas are obsessed with shoes, but I do have an obsession with ballet slippers, developed when I was a child.
My ballet school teacher was very strict and wanted us to wear the best ballet shoes on the market, hand-made in Italy by Milan-based Porselli (historically speaking older and offering higher quality shoes compared to Repetto, founded in 1947 by Roland Petit's mother, Rose Repetto).
The slippers were rather expensive and, since ballet shoes are very personal things as you are responsible for darning and stitching on the ribbons to suit your preferences, every girl in the school actually had a sort of fetishistic attraction to her slippers.
One of my favourite childhood memories actually involves ballet shoes: Porselli only made pink, white, black and nude and azure slippers (I had a strange addiction for the black ones, but we were only allowed black if this colour was required to match with a special costume...totally unfair), though you could order shoes in special colours if you wanted.
Since made-to-order shoes were extremely expensive, whenever we needed coloured slippers we had to turn to DIY, a process that usually required the older girls in the school to spray paint old pink shoes with the required colour.
The results were usually rather amateurish, but the process was extremely fun, especially if you weren’t the one doing the job and you could therefore avoid getting intoxicated by the rather pungent smell of paint.
Many years after I left the ballet school I discovered that Porselli was actually directly connected with Romeo Nicolini (one of his workers, Eugenio Porselli bought back the shoemaking company from Nicolini).
The craftsman made shoes for many performers, among them Tamara Karsavina, Lydia Lopokova and many other Ballets Russes dancers. Yet his most famous client remained Anna Pavlova.
Nicolini made the shoes by hand to her specifications and always tried his best to please her. Pavlova often sent him drawings and measurements and, at times, she even visited him to show Nicolini how some steps had to be performed so that he could create perfectly fitting shoes in satin (for the outside) and soft kid leather (on the inside).
Nicolini was honoured that the performer wore his shoes, but he once told teacher Enrico Cecchetti that he was glad he only had one Pavlova to please since she was extremely demanding when it came to quality and design.
A pair of Nicolini’s shoes for Tamara Karsavina (from 1914 ballet "Les Papillons") are showcased at the Ballet Russes exhibition on until tomorrow at the V&A (the museum actually stocks in its collections quite a few pairs of shoes by Nicolini, donated by different dancers to dance critic and historian Cyril Beaumont – NB a signed shoe worn by a famous performer on a premiere or on special perfomance, dated and dedicated to the recipient, is the ultimate souvenir for a true balletomane).
One of the secrets of Nicolini’s shoes was that they made no sound on stage. Time to rediscover this technique and maybe apply it to everyday shoes?
While you think about the answer check out this clip from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’1948 legendary film The Red Shoes: it features scary atmospheres, beautiful costumes (the film features creations by Carven, Jacques Fath and Mattli) and, obviously, very tempting shoes.
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My kid will be entering ballet class next week. I had seen a potential on her because she loves dancing. As a parent, I would like to give it to her in order to enhance more her talent.
Posted by: shoe rack bench | March 31, 2011 at 01:10 AM