What Goes into a Move Shoe?

Conception

Meet some of the design team!

A pair of Move Dance shoes comes into life because we strive to give you, our dancers, the tools that you need from the feet up to be amazing in dance! That means that we look at the market to identify what we think is lacking for you and how we can create something to fill that gap. Speaking to dancers and hearing firsthand what dancers need is what really drives us to bring out a new shoe style or improved shoe. Our customers’ feedback through reviews of an existing pair of shoes can prompt an improvement in a shoe because we want to always ensure that we’re offering you the best we possibly can. From attending classes ourselves, we know exactly what the most important things are to create a stellar shoe. So, when we conceive of a pair of shoes, it’s: fit, comfort, durability and aesthetic that’re at the forefront of our minds.

Design

Our designer looking over a dance sneakers sketch alongside her design spec

This stage for us is usually the most exciting because our creative ideas are flying everywhere! We absolutely love seeing a pair of shoes come into life as our in-house designer draws up her first sketches and design specs. We’re constantly in touch with dancers at every step of the process when bringing out a new shoe, but it’s important for us at this stage to touch base with our dancers to see if they have any further suggestions to improve the design based on our original concept. We then entrust the people who make our dance shoes to bring life into our designs!

Testing

Here's a behind the scenes look at testing

Our dance shoes are designed for dancers and are tested by dancers. A pair of shoes’ life at Move Dance starts out with testing after it’s been designed and made. All of us at Move HQ spend a few days wearing the shoes around the office to begin testing - you won’t find another office who knows each others’ shoe sizes better! Back when we had our dance shop, we’d always encourage customers to be involved in testing by quickly trying on a sample pair of shoes. Most importantly, we work closely with local dancers and get them to do a wear test over an extended time period to assess if the shoes live up to what our dancers are used to and expect from Move Dance shoes. We really encourage our dancer testers to put our shoes through their paces, wearing them as often as everyday a week for class if that’s normal for them. After the test period, the dancers give us detailed feedback on how they found their new shoes. We’re interested in our dancers’ comments on any aspect of the shoes, ranging from how it fits to their thoughts on how it looks. We use this feedback to create a second, improved version of the shoes that’s been enhanced by our own comments and those of our dancers. So when you buy a pair of Move Dance shoes, you can feel confident knowing that it’s been given the thumbs up by other dancers like yourself!

Final Checks

After testing, our shoes go through a quality control stage at Move HQ that’s second to their manufacturing checks. The Quality Assurance team assess a full size set of the shoes for them to ensure that each shoe is true to size. It’s really important to us that you can confidently buy a pair of Move Dance shoes knowing that it will fit you well and support you as you dance.

Completion

By this stage our new shoes are pretty and perfect, heading next to be packaged up in our gorgeous boxes ready for you to choose!

Shop all Move Dance shoes here