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Women began to dance ballet in 1681, twenty years after King Louis XIV of France ordered the founding of the Académie Royale de Danse (first dance institution established in the Western world). Ballet slippers had heels.
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The first dancers to rise up on their toes did so with the help of an invention by Charles Didelot in 1795.
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In 1832, when Marie Taglioni first danced the entire La Sylphide (a romantic ballet in two acts) en pointe.
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The birth of the modern pointe shoe is often attributed to the early 20th-century Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who was one of the most famous and influential dancers of her time.
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Dancers like Pierina Legnani wore shoes with a sturdy, flat platform at the front end of the shoe, rather than the more sharply pointed toe of earlier models.
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