Gaynor Minden opened its door in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, New York City in 1993, having outgrown its first home in John and Eliza Minden's small Manhattan apartment. At that time they had one part-time employee and one product: the patented pointe shoe that Eliza Minden had developed over the preceding eight years.

Today, Gaynor Minden serves 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.

Dancers are artists who deserve no less than the best that human intelligence and imagination can deliver. To better serve dancers, it is essential to recognize that they are athletes as well as artists, and the dancer's body is his/her instrument. Gaynor Minden dedicates itself to creating and producing products that respect the instrument, benefit the artist, and enhance the art.

Gaynor Minden logo represents reverence, one of ballet's loveliest rituals. Sometimes simple, sometimes elaborately choreographed, reverence exemplifies ballet's traditions of courtesy, dignity, elegance, and respect. (The French pronunciation is ray-yayr-ahns, most Americans call it reh-yer-ahntz)