Can the launch of brown and bronze ballet shoes correct color discrimination?

The diversity of people in the ballet world has always been a problem. The black ballet dancer Eric Underwood of the Royal Ballet believes that the reasons are complex, including race, income, social class and other factors that have led to the exclusion of people of color.

“Balletes need to be practiced when they are very young. Parents or society have a responsibility to introduce the art to children. It is difficult for a five-year-old child to express his wish to dance to her mother.”

An article in the 2012 Guardian cited several top dance ensembles: only 2 of the 64 dancers in the English National Ballet, the Royal Ballet. The Royal Ballet Among the 96 dancers, there are 4 males and 1 female black dancers. There are no black faces among the 218 dancers in Russia's oldest Bolshoi Ballet.

This brings about clothing and shoes.

Ballet shoes have long been designed in pink – a color that matches the white complexion. The color design of the dance shoes is not just for "good looking", it is to enhance the dancer's leg line and visual slender feeling, but also to create a "barefoot" dance feeling, so that the ballerina seems to be in the air Hovering.

Strictly speaking, dance shoes should be a "naked color" (or "flesh"). In recent years, the definition of nude color in cosmetics and fashion brands is no longer so narrow. They are even required to be diversified. For example, Rihanna's own brand, Fenty Beauty, has launched 40 colors.

But in the ballet world, because of the small people of color, they can only buy pink ballet shoes. In order to make the visual harmony, the dancers have to use dark liquid foundation or acrylic paint to darken the color of their dance shoes. This process called “pancaking” is time-consuming and costly.

Recently, the British company Freed teamed up with British dance company Ballet Black to launch brown and bronze dance shoes for the first time, and more and more colored dancers will choose. Ballet Black is a professional ballet company composed of black and Asian dancers. Freed is a British company that designs and manufactures pointe shoes and other dance shoes.

Freed was the first British brand to launch such a service, but last year the American company Gaynor Minden also launched special "tips" for "brown" and "cappuccino".

But just "having" is not enough. Gaynor Minden's ballet shoes are not traditional paper + glue, and some dancers do not adapt to their elastic plastic materials. Similarly, some dancers said they would not wear the pointe shoes made by Freed because the style is not suitable for them.

More and more colors are a good thing, and then you need to be more diverse in the category.