Bernard Kohler The Pointe Shoe Guru: a Fount of Knowledge
Even though in recent years more and more has been written about pointe shoes, their inner-workings are still somewhat cloaked in mystery. One reason for this is because information about shoes is obscure. The descriptions in the advertisements may be lengthy, but what do they mean when they say they last longer, give a better balance, are more comfortable or make less noise? It sometimes sounds like political "spin" rather than a sincere attempt to be clear.
One person who could clarify it all is Bernard Kohler, an Englishman who is probably the most knowledgeable person in the pointe shoe business. One October afternoon Rosalie O'Connor and I had a long and intriguing conversation with him.
His involvement began as he was discharged from the Royal Marines after World War II in London. He said in jest that he was like most other young men who had money in their pocket. It took a while before he realized he had better start working. At that time Freed of London had placed an ad in the paper looking for bench hands to. Bernard said he didn't know exactly what it was they wanted but knew it was time he got a proper job. This was in late 1949.
"I got interested in the job, (making pointe shoes), and gradually worked my way to Managing Director of the comp-any. My specialty was looking after the makers because I had come up from the factory floor. I had competent people in charge of the other departments like the binding, cutting down and measuring, but the critical part of the whole process was the making."
Bernard says that when he first came to Freeds, he picked up the rudiments rather quickly. He attributes it to having such an intense interest in the process explaining, "if you develop an interest in something, you become far more competent than somebody just working for a wage packet." He continues by saying, "what's the point of doing a job if you're not going to put all you've got into it? Why do something half-heartedly?"
Not only was he knowledgeable and interested in pointe shoe making, but he cared about each dancer and her needs. Pointe shoes are an essential tool to ballet dancers and can either 'make or break' a dancer's performance. Since most of Freeds' business revolved around custom shoes as opposed to stock shoes, Bernard was presented with an enormous range
of challenges.
He fulfilled the dancers' needs for a perfect fit as well as their other desires and requirements by first getting an insight into each person's makeup. How has she been trained; what does she want to do? He elaborates, "if you take two girls with the same build and trained in the same way, you would think they would take a similar shoe, but that wasn't always the case because every dancer was an individual. They wanted different things from their shoes. What I would do for one dancer wouldn't necessarily suit the other. Ideally, I would like to see the girl, find out what was bothering her, what she would like to do and what she can't do. I would have the maker make up a pair of shoes that I thought would suit her.....does she need a wing block, a light wing block, softer insole, harder insole,
3/4 cut.........whatever.........variations on a theme. She would then try them and tell me how she got on. I would take it from there and build on that. If the dancer was overseas, it was a matter of trial and error. We would correspond by letter or occasionally I would speak to them on the phone. We would gradually get a consensus."
Bernard stressed over and over again how each dancer is a distinct individual. He said that is what he liked about the job. It wasn't just the challenge he liked, but the satisfaction of knowing he had succeeded in making the girl happy. When she went away, he didn't know if she would be a better dancer for it, or if she would succeed in the profession. But he had played his part.
Working with The Royal Ballet students was something he loved in particular because they were starry-eyed youngsters who were just starting off. He would go to The Lower School every term to fit the students for their pointe shoes. As the children developed, he made sure the shoe could develop with them in response to the extra load that they would be expected to shoulder. He kept an eye out for them as they grew up and went into the professional world.
Some of the stars that depended upon Bernard for his expertise and guidance were Leslie Collier, Jennifer Penney, Monica Mason (now the Artistic Director of The Royal Ballet), Darci Kistler, Suzanne Farrell, Maria Tallchief, Alicia and Laura Alonso, Gelsey Kirkland, Natalie Makarova, Sylvie Guillem, Patricia McBride, Carla Fracci, Evelyn Hart, Svetlana Beriosova, Elaine Fifield, Maina Gielgud and Margaret Illman to mention just a few. Bernard fondly remembers Margot Fonteyn. "She was a lovely woman to work with. She had very few changes in her shoes over the years. When she was nearing the end of her career, we had to strengthen the shoe up a little bit. Her feet were like iron. I think she could have danced en pointe in her bare feet."
Eleven years ago he retired from Freeds, but he didn't stay retired long. When David Wilkenfeld, Managing Director of Bloch International, asked him to bring his expertise to Blochs, Bernard accepted. In a short while, he was off to Australia where he introduced some of the makers to the Freeds' style of making pointe shoes. After going back and forth to Australia several times, the factory burned down, and the company decided to transfer the operation to Bangkok. So, in 1994 off he went to set up the factory in Thailand.
When asked to compare his exper-iences at Freeds with Bloch, Bernard hesitated and then explained. They had completely different setups. Whereas Freeds' main business came from the dancers........direct from the ballet companies........ a relatively small proportion went into stock shoes for retail customers. The exact opposite was true at Bloch. The bulk of their production is stock shoes which are sent out to retailers although they did open a factory in London to cater to dancers who desired custom made or special order shoes. They were running dual types of shoes.
The process of making the shoes is different too. Freeds shoes don't lend themselves to modern machinery. That is why you never get any two pair of shoes exactly the same. They are completely handmade with the individual maker working on the same pair throughout the entire process.* With Bloch, you can go to the shop and buy a pair one month. Then go again in six months' time and buy another pair of the same model, and it will be exactly the same. Also, Freeds' English paste is different from the Italian paste that Bloch uses in the block of the shoe. The latter sets up much harder than the former. Another difference between them is when the shoe is bound. At Freeds when the shoe is put over the last, the binding and drawstrings have not been put on. It is all measured and cut for each dancer's specifications after the maker has blocked the shoe. With a Bloch shoe the upper that the maker works on is pre-bound. It is finished and bound with the drawstring before the maker gets it. That's why they are always standard.
Now that Bernard has completely retired with no plans to go back to work, he looks back on his life. "I thoroughly enjoyed all of my time in this business and don't regret it for one moment; far from it. To think it was something that I drifted into by accident makes it all the better. I was never one to plan my life. I used to take things as they came. Well,.........it just came. I've been lucky, I suppose. I've always been prepared to work. I wouldn't leave for the day until I finished what had to be done. I was occupied, and didn't notice the passing of time. It just went. If you can say that about a job you've done, I think you've been pretty lucky. I can remember the first day I started at Freeds, and it doesn't seem that long ago. If anybody can say that about their job, they have done pretty well."
*The Freeds Studios line of shoes is made by a different process.
Janice Barringer is a ballet teacher and author of both The Pointe Book and the recently published On Pointe.
www.freedoflondon.com