Having previously struggled to find shoes that combine comfort with a fashionable twist. As a person affected by bunions herself, Dr Dawn is a huge fan of the Sole Bliss brand. Following five years of research and development (and including patent-pending Juanet Technology) the shoes provide elegance and a deep and spacious fit at the front.
Why have you chosen to get involved with Sole Bliss?
You know, when people come to me with bunions, they usually say, ‘I don’t want to waste your time, it’s just a bunion’. The truth of the matter is that 14 million people in the UK have bunions, 11 million of them are women, and actually they can be very painful. OK, they’re not life-threatening, but they are life-impacting actually, and I appreciated that for the first time when I started developing a bunion on my right foot. I am a self-confessed heel lover, you know I’m always in my heels. People often used to say to me, ‘How do you wear those all day, Dawn?’ And I used to be able to, no problem but I was gradually getting to the stage where, perhaps I wouldn’t wear them from meeting to meeting or I’d hop in a cab because my feet were hurting all the time. I was putting up with that because I know as a doctor, that actually bunion surgery is quite a big ordeal. I put pumps in my bag and so on, and then I came across Sole Bliss shoes.
So the surgery can be quite difficult?
It’s a much bigger ordeal than most people realise, so most people kind of say, oh well it’s only a bunion, I’ll have that operated on because it doesn’t look very nice and it’s hurting me.
I’d say two things: number one is that actually, it will take a good 12 weeks to recover from, and number two is that depending on the surgery you have, sometimes you have little pins put into the foot which makes it quite rigid, so it keeps the toe straight and that can mean that even though you’ve had your bunion surgery you never quite get back into the heels that you were hoping to get back into.
So really all we’re saying is don’t rush into surgery, there are other things you can do.
How do Sole Bliss shoes help?
Yesterday I left home first thing in the morning and got home just after midnight, and I was on my feet all day in my new Sole Bliss shoes. We all know that normally, when you buy shoes, you’ve got to wear them in a little bit, but you know, my feet were absolutely fine. They’ve got this special technology which has padding on the inside, so not only are they comfortable, but they don’t deform.
If you’ve got significant bunions, very quickly after buying a lovely new pair of shoes, they start to deform, and you can see the shape of the bunion on the outside. You don’t get that with Sole Bliss shoes because they absorb the pressure.
If your feet hurt, and you become less mobile, that has a huge impact on quality of life.
They’re beautiful shoes and on a personal and professional level I think it’s great that women can continue to feel elegant whilst not making their feet scream at them!
More: The full Sole Bliss range is available at: www.solebliss.com