Pointe Shoe Ribbons | Pro Tip from Elizabeth Marlin

Our current School of Ballet 5:8 Featured Guest, Elizabeth Marlin, is a Company Artist with Ballet 5:8. We asked her to share some of her favorite pro tips with us over the coming weeks. Today's insight is a pointe shoe ribbon hack you won't want to miss.

Elizabeth says:

My pointe shoe ribbons used to be my mortal enemy. If I tied my ribbons too tightly, I felt they would pop off when I rolled up to pointe, but if I tied them too loosely, the gaps would be visible when I was standing on flat.

My struggle came to a happy conclusion when I started sewing a small piece of elastic between the ribbon and my pointe shoe. This enables me to tie my ribbons tightly enough to eliminate gaps, while the elastic gives the ribbon an extra stretch when rolling through demi-pointe.

To do this, just take a small piece of pointe shoe elastic and sew one end of the ribbon to one end of the elastic. Then sew the other end of the elastic to the same place on the pointe shoe where you would normally sew your ribbon. It looks just like a normal ribbon but affords you greater mobility and articulation of the feet!