Chacott By Freed of London

Went to this place yesterday to get pointe shoes. This sweet girl Olivia helped me pick out the perfect pair! If Olivia’s employer is reading this give that girl a raise immediately! Went in to the store with every intention of getting fitted for pointe shoes then ordering them online for a cheaper price. But, Olivia helped me find the right maker, the right combination of toe pads (had hardware in one of my feet so one foot is smaller then the other) After all that she did there was no was that I could walk out of there without a pair of shoes :-) Amazing fitter. This place is awesome and easy to find.

I’ve been having the worst time trying to be re-​sized for pointe shoes where I live in Las Vegas. I just go hired to do a pointe solo with a show on the strip, and I wasn’t going to take a chance with ordering Freeds through Discount Dance. I just so happened to be in NYC this week, so I took a trip to the Chacott store to be re-​fitted. Olivia was a tremendous help to me! She took the time to let me try on as many shoes as I wanted until I was completely comfortable with my selection. I loved the fit she found for me so much that I purchased two pairs right away! If you are looking for a wide selection and a perfect fit, don’t go anywhere else. And ask for Olivia!!!

Great! The spot has a nice feel to it. I got fitted for slippers practically on sight. 5 stars because the fit is much better than anything else I’ve tried. Great candles as well, my new favorite smell is Bergamot.

A stunningly beautiful shop featuring all sorts of wearables for dancers as well as fashionable fitness clothes. This would be a young dancers dream shop.
The dancewear displays, which include some tutu masterpieces, are elegant and inspiring, but they also carry many outfits for other disciplines.
Its not throw away workout wear, definitely a splurge, but the quality is obvious.
The shop is managed by very nice people who all look to be dancers themselves.
I may have stuck with my lessons if Chacott’s was around back then!

I just bought a pair of Freed point shoes for me and my teenager
I was very pleased by the excellent service, knowledge and charm of their fitter Emily
The entire experience was relaxing, pleasant and sophisticated
The store itself is beautiful and carries all your ballerina’s needs

Chacott is a Tokyo based offshoot of Freed of London; a dancewear and ballet/​jazz/​ballroom/​rhythmic gymnastics shoe company manufacturing 90% of its products in mother England. For *real* ballerinas, this is «the leading supplier of bespoke Pointe Shoes, handmade to perfectly fit dancers’ feet.»
The flagship NYC store is on a quiet side street, and the reflection of the sky in its spotless glass front hinders easy recognition of what’s inside. I only became aware that this was a dance equipment store while sharing happy hour across the way with a girl who used to dance. «Oh, Chacott!» she exclaimed, and suddenly I saw arched shoes, flowing cloth, and plaster legs.
Soon afterwards, I visited the store even without the intention of joining the sad pack of 30-​something females striving in vain to recover youthful allure by strapping on cloying pink shoes.
A young girl inside asked immediately if she could help me. I felt intimidation, embarrassment, and jealousy until I realized that my ugly duckling complex was just that. So I smiled, told her I was just looking, and gingerly worked through the minimalist presentation of simple, high quality dance clothing rendered special fabrics and classy, muted colors.
My vision blurred at the sight of petite towers stocked with items of podiatry, so I continued to the back wall of white, beige/​pink, and black slippers housed in clear, lablike plastic drawers reaching to the ceiling. Over yonder, satin pointe shoes in a spectrum of icy pinks shimmered like portals I dared not enter. Said goodbye to the girl (probably a dancer in the Company) and retreated to my workplace.
Yesterday, I returned with the newly formed goal of purchasing a pair of soft slippers after deciding to swallow my pride and enroll in ballet class in earnest. This time, a man accompanied the girl. Again, I was asked immediately if I needed help. Once I said what I needed, he brought me straight back to the shoe wall and pointed out the two soft slipper designs that they carried, both canvas. Trapped in a Capezio mindset, I asked to see leather. «We don’t really do leather,» he said, «there’s really no reason for leather unless you just… want that.»
Apparently, all that I’d ever desired and required were not pedestrian leather shoes, but these vegan slippers in square weave cotton with a pinch of elastane for stretch, reassuringly reminiscent of Ace bandages.
The other model was 100% cotton with 0% give, in a denim-​style weave (diagonal grain). Though this might have had a more pointe-​like effect (and isn’t that secretly what all girls want even if they’ll never get up on their toes?), the fabric reminded me too much of totes for me to buy into the aesthetic. Plus, because of the comparative rigidity, the support elastics were only tacked down at one end, leaving the dancer responsible for sewing down the other end to fit.
Without letting on that he’d already sized up my foot, the man handed me a shoe. When I couldn’t get into the seemingly one-​size-​stretches-​to-​all slipper (proof that there’s actually something tailored about these seemingly structureless cloth pieces), he handed me something else. Done. Nothing more to discuss, other than some meek questions about dance studios, which he answered honestly and without patronization.
I looked at the ergonomically placed grey leather sole pads and remarked that I’d already dirtied them but knew they’d get dirty anyway. «Oh no, that’s the display pair,» he said. Each size has its own display set here! «Here are new ones, but they’ll be FILTHY soon enough,» he chuckled. I asked if they were machine washable. «Oh, yes,» he said, «and you’ll WANT to wash them.» [More laughter.]
The girl rang me up with a knowing smile handed me a black handled bag — just the right size for the shoes and maybe a pair of tights and a leotard. Most of all, I thought that the shoes would be $ 50 coming out of a heralded London boutique. But no, it was $ 22 flat for my flats. I’ve paid that much for a glorified tank top.
I highly recommend this place to anyone who, regardless of experience, is a purist at heart, seeking authoritative and surprisingly egalitarian guidance in locating one of the renowned products passively available in a tranquil setting with ZERO scene or snark.
If you walk in here, the ratio between sales specialist and yourself is likely to be 1:1. There won’t be any dance moms, screaming fairy princesses, or devastatingly beautiful but self-​loathing dancers reiterating their physical and metaphysical superiority over you when you were already bowing your head to avoid the radiation.
All this helps tremendously in putting your best foot forward in a humbly designed, clinically precise stretch canvas slipper, which will be worth more than every cent you paid in terms of revolutions made in the joy of dance, which, despite its perceived exclusivity, is really accessible to anyone who dares to follow their heart (through the doors of Chacott).