There are so many beautiful brands of pointe shoes that come from Italy! I cant think of a time when I saw an Italian model that wasn’t lovely in construction and quality. Finding these Iovine Ignazio lovelies was such a joy. They have entered into the realm of the highly collectible as it appears their manufacturing days are long over.
The IOVINE IGNAZIO brand is one of those super-fascinating treasured mysteries that can make a pointe shoe lover spend hours and hours searching for any tidbit of information they can find. However, thanks to a responsive family member, I was able to wrap up my search in good time.
They were hand-crafted in Naples, Italy. Napoli is what the Italians call Naples. The old company url, http://www.iovineignazio.com/index1.htm, was last crawled by Google in 2007.
On the bottom of the bag you can see di Iovine Espedito. That led me to their current company, GlovesIovine. I am very fortunate that the nephew of Iovine Ignazio, Marco, responded to me on Facebook. Yes, it’s true. His uncle’s factory closed down.
What we have now are vintage, discontinued hand-crafted Italian pointe shoes that are a collectors dream.