What is your pointe shoe secret? Episode 3: Connie Vowles

Episode 3 of What is your pointe shoe secret? features Connie Vowles, Grand Sujet of the Dutch National Ballet.  

Connie is from Bristol, the United Kingdom, and trained at The Royal Ballet School. Upon graduation, she joined the English National Ballet (ENB), then the Dutch National Ballet (Het Nationale Ballet/HNB) in 2019. She was promoted to coryphée in 2021 and to grand sujet in 2022.

I have seen Connie on stage many times with ENB and the Dutch National Ballet. She is a very solid dancer and has beautiful feet that any ballet dancers wish to have. She kindly shared a lot of secrets with me. Let's find out!

1. What brand of pointe shoes do you wear? 

 I wear Freed of London. 

2. What model?  

Studio Pro  

3. What is your size and width? 

At the moment,  I am a size 4 ½ E , with a V Vamp. The ‘E’ refers to the width category.

However, I am expecting trials to arrive soon with extra width (EE), and a shorter length (Size 4). I have been finding that my shoe is twisting a lot at the box, it doesn’t follow my line, and this makes the shoe break faster. These little tweaks make all the difference, and I have a good feeling about these next trials! 😊  

4. Since when have you been using Freed? 

I have been using Freed since I was 10 years old. When I joined The Royal Ballet School in 2008, it was a requirement. 

I took a little detour to try out different brands when I became a professional. Dancers get a certain number of shoes per month and, especially when I began working, it was very difficult for my shoes to last, relative to the number of performances. I’ve tried Bloch, Gaynor and Sansha in different styles and sizes. However, I’ve always come back to Freed, because they allow for natural foot articulation, and I enjoy jumping in them. (I would love to try Suffolk one day though, just to compare.)  

5. Do you ask for any customisation at the manufacturer side? 

I ask for a harder sole. My foot is very mobile, so I need some resistance to work with. I have worked a lot on strengthening my body to account for this, but our stage floor is quite soft, so this helps.  

6. Do you do any customisation yourself? If so, how long does it take for you to finish customising a pair? 

I used to do a lot of customisation, you wouldn't believe! I used to stay up until the early morning fixing my shoes for the next day, until I decided I would rather sleep and find shoes I didn’t have to customise. Now I just cut the soles under my heel.

However, it has taken years of trial and error through different brands, different sizes, different widths. (I think my feet aren’t a standard size, they are small, wide and shallow). I am lucky that my lovely ladies in the shoe department at HNB have been very patient and helpful 😊  

7. Do you like soft shanks better or hard shanks better? 

I prefer hard shanks. 

9. New shoes or old shoes? 

New shoes for classical productions, old shoes for neoclassical productions. But anyone who knows me knows that my shoes don’t stay new for long. 😊  

10. What support or protection do you use? Do you recommend any specific products? 

I wore animal wool for years and years. Then I tried ‘PerfectFit Pointe’ and I swear by it! They fill any space left between your toes and the box, so the shoe really follows your movement. It sounds strange, but my toes are very shallow relative to my arch, so I often have a lot of space to fill in the height of the box. These things are a science! 

11. Do you use elastics and ribbons of any specific brands? 

I love the TLC (Tendon Loving Care) Gaynor Ribbons. They have a built-in elastic section supposed to ease up the tension on your tendons, which is great for when your ankles swell (like mine do).  

12. Have you tried any other brands before? If so, why did you change? 

There are also ribbons called ‘Stretch Ribbons’, and I didn’t get on well with those. Unlike the TLC ribbons, the whole ribbon is stretchy and so when my ankles eventually become less swollen (i.e. during a 2-hour show), they would be too loose. Some people love them though.  

As for shoes, I really liked the Bloch I wore (Synergy). However, I decided to move on from them since the box was very hard, and my metatarsals would ache trying to break them in.  

13. Do you use different shoes for different roles? 

Generally, I don’t plan with shoes. I will break a new shoe in and wear it the next day on stage. That way I know what to expect, since the shoe is warm and moulded to your foot.  Sometimes I’ll save a pair I like for a particular role. Sometimes If I am tired, I might wear a harder pair for more support.  

14. How long a pair of shoes last?  

My shoes could last a while, if I am smart about which role I use them for. If my shoes warp and break at the box I cannot use them again, but if they break at the sole, I can salvage them. It really depends on the repertoire too! 

15. Lastly, what is your ambition for the rest of the season and the new season? 

My ambition for this last season was to make the most, and make the best of any given moment that I danced. 

My ambition for the coming season is to have faith and conviction of all that I have learned in ballet and life so far, so I can face new challenges with aplomb, and love in my heart😊  

Connie as Kitri's friend in Don Quixote - Source: her Instagram post

All images courtesy of Connie Vowles.

Note: Text is unedited but I inserted some spacing and removed a comma. The What is your pointe shoe secret? blog series is not sponsored content.

Correction: The year of the promotion to coryphee was wrongly stated and has now been corrected.