Gaynor Minden opened its doors in the Chelsea section of Manhattan in 1993. They had one employee and one product, the patented pointe shoe made from high-tech materials that Eliza Minden had developed over the preceding eight years.

Today, they serve several hundred dance-specialty stores nation-wide as well as numerous overseas distributors, and almost every major professional ballet company in the world including American Ballet Theatre, England's Royal Ballet and Russia's Kirov Ballet.

The Gaynor Minden Boutique in Chelsea has expanded repeatedly to accommodate their rapid growth and a wide range of new products including extensions to the original line of pointe shoes. Eliza Minden holds six US government patents for the various innovative and beneficial (among the official criteria for a patent) products that she has designed.

The original pointe shoe line has greatly increased from the first stiff-shanked model in a limited selection of sizes to now include a variety of ultra-flexible shanks and boxes made from the most advanced elastomers — materials only recently developed — and a much larger size selection including a special narrow-heeled style for the sleekest possible fit. Built-in suede platforms, dyed to match the pink satin, are now a standard option for even greater durability.