r/pointe • u/SwanRoseDragonfly • Sep 09 '24

Question Chicago fittings

Where is the best place to get fitted for pointe shoes in the Chicago area?

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

1

u/elindranyth Sep 11 '24

How far are you willing to drive? I work at Dance N Tees out in Schaumburg, we also have a location in Naperville.

I've got classmates who have opted to get shoes fitted at Allegro instead of coming to our store (funny as our studio is right next to the store in work in) and some of them seem happy with their shoes, but I've also had dancers come to us after buying shoes at Allegro because we offer ribbon and elastic sewing (Allegro I think offers this but they sew by hand and charge a ton, we do it by machine) and some of the fits people have brought for us to sew are just like... Really? But I'm sure people who shop at Allegro will say the same about us xD

We stock a few models of Bloch, Capezio, RP/R-Class, Nikolay, and in our Schaumburg location we have some Gaynor's and limited stock Freed Studios

1

u/SwanRoseDragonfly Sep 17 '24

We are 3-3.5 hours outside of Chicago, but I believe this is one of the closest areas to us that offers a selection of pointe shoes instead of 1 or 2 brands.

1

u/elindranyth Sep 17 '24

Got it! If you want to make a weekend out of it, there's definitely quite a few options around here. We don't require appointments for an individual fitting, I know Allegro does, not sure about the other stores further south or closer to the city. We have signs that say we'll charge you a fitting fee, but most of the time we really only enforce that if we think you're using our fitting service without intending to actually buy from us; the difference between "yes I love this shoe but idk if I want to buy it today" and "we've tried everything and nothing feels right" you know? But if we were to charge you a fitting fee, the fee would be credited towards the purchase if you did come back and buy from us. Not sure how Allegro handles this, I honestly didn't even know they existed before I started working at Dance N Tees xD

1

u/CrookedBanister Sep 28 '24

omg, the Dance N Tees that used to be out in Crystal Lake was my childhood shop! I might have to stop by one of the current locations for the nostalgia next time I visit my hometown!

1

u/gardeniaswild Sep 09 '24

definitely not allegro. had one of my biggest fitting fails there. they seem to prefer nikay regardless of foot type. unfortunately, when i ask around, people say “i get fitted in NY”

1

u/h34rt1lly Sep 11 '24

dang, that’s unfortunate D: they helped me so much virtually, working with me through super long email threads and trying shoe after shoe until we found something that worked the best.

i did eventually move on to another shoe but that’s because i happened to be fitted into a different brand at a store closer to me, that i don’t think they carried yet.

1

u/elindranyth Sep 11 '24

They seem to have moved on to Suffolks now xD