Dennis Reeve Pointe Shoes

For the last few hours, I have been on an intense information hunt about the Dennis Reeve pointe shoe brand. The origins of these shoes are mysterious indeed. Checking online for the name Dennis Reeve comes up short as far any good , solid information goes.

The soles here are slightly worn down so reading the makers stamp for more information is difficult.

Dennis Reeve Pointe Shoes

I did find one dancewear company based in Germany that has an interesting advertisement. The company, En.swing-balletshop, offers a Merlet pointe shoe model for sale that is classified as a beginner pointe shoe. The name Dennis Reeve can be seen in parenthesis next to this Merlet Pulsion model.

I find this very intriguing! How does Dennis Reeve connect with Merlet? Did Dennis Reeve just endorse this model as a beginner pointe shoe, or did he actually design it?  I have sent an e-mail inquiry to En.swing-balletshop asking for more information about Dennis Reeve. If I am lucky enough to receive a response from this company, I will update this post .

Benefis-More Than Just Tutus

K0001

The Benefis Dance Wear Company in Chisinau, Moldova is well-known for producing some of the most beautiful  classical tutu and ballet costumes in the world. The company has been producing dance wear since 1995 and is the only ballet costume manufacturer in the country of Moldova.

Moldova is located in Eastern Europe and is nestled between the countries of Ukraine and Romania. The Benefis website contains a surprise; pointe shoes.

I hadn’t visited the Benefis website in quite a while, so I was surprised to see pointe shoe models for sale.  I was fortunate enough to receive a quick response from Benefis about my inquiry of these shoes.

The Kiev Pointe Shoe Brand

The pointe shoes sold on the Benefis website are made in Kiev, Ukraine making them totally unique and a 100% Ukrainian pointe shoe brand. I was also fortunate enough to be contacted by an avid reader who has a pair of the Kiev pointe shoes in her collection. These are her personal photos of the Kiev pointe shoe. Thank you for sharing these great photos.

Russian-Style Design

Maker's Stamp

Kiev Pointe Shoes

Made in the Ukraine

Thick Leather Soles

Benefis only sells this model in two limited sizes. They don’t carry a large inventory of the Kiev model. The model, K0001, comes in a child’s size and an adult size. At the time of this post, Benefis had 3 pairs of these wonderful, Russian-style  pointe shoes in stock.

The discovery of a new pointe shoe brand makes all the research and hunting for information worthwhile. The Ukrainian-made K0001 is an intriguing pointe shoe model and adds  another country to the list of pointe shoe brands from all over the world.

Ballerina Brand Pointe Shoes From Japan

1048

EX

EX II

LEGATO

RX

Beautiful And Mysterious

The Ballerina Dancewear Company has a been a real challenge to research. Perhaps research is the wrong word. The Ballerina website seems absolutely stripped of any real information that a dancer can use to make a pointe shoe decision.

The Ballerina Company website has no “about” page, and even more mysterious, no contact e-mail for the business. They supply a fax number and telephone number for inquiries about their products. Asking customer service a question from the United States would require a translator, a fax machine, and a good long-distance carrier on your phone service.

There are English words on the website mixed in with Japanese, but not enough to decipher the meaning. Finding the Ballerina website has solved two of my pointe shoe mysteries regarding the EX II and Legato model which you can see here at the top of the page. The Legato model is the third pointe shoe from the top left and the EX II is next to it on the right. The pointe shoes do all have names, but so far I am able to come up with the EX, EX II, Legato, and RX. None of the models have any design specifications other than color.

The Ballerina pointe shoe collection is amazingly pretty, and it appears that there are at least 3 retail shops in Japan that sell Ballerina products. Hopefully this pointe shoe company will provide an e-mail contact sometime in the near future.

The Ballerina of Japan website is just as pretty as their pointe shoe models. You can visit their website here.

Freed’s Pointe Shoe Miniatures

Freed Miniature Pointe Shoes

Ekaterina’s Pointe Shoe Fitting

This young, beautiful ballet student is going through the dreaded pointe shoe fitting process that all ballet dancers go through. She is trying on a pair of Freed miniatures in this photo.

As you can see, the vamps are too long for her. She may do better in a Grishko or Russian Pointe miniature. In case you are wondering why a kitten in pointe shoes has shown up here at Pointe-shoe-brands,  there are some things in life that are simply too hard to resist!

Ekaterina is a female Persian kitten and is the latest member of the Costume Creations Dancewear Company in the United Kingdom.

She still has a long way to go as far as building up foot (paw) strength, but I feel she will make a wonderful apprentice at the Mariinsky Theater when she gets older. And think how beautiful she’s going to look in a white classical tutu!

Ekaterina  is now on Facebook where you can see her in her classical tutu

Multi-Colored Spanish Pointe Shoe Miniatures

These pointe shoe miniatures are from The Spanish Dancewear Company in Grenada, Spain. The website doesn’t give a size on them so it is unclear if they are really tiny or if they are the larger 3″ size. If I was going to buy a pair of these pretty miniature pointe shoes, I would have a hard time choosing what color. Looking at the photos I notice that the black pair appear pre-arched and the silver pair have the same toe box shape as the Rumpf Maria which I find interesting.  What color do you prefer?