Sole sister to the stars: Claudia Joseph meets LISA KAY, the woman behind the shoe brand the A-list can't get enough of
Lisa Kay clearly remembers the moment she decided to create fashionable shoes for people with bunions. It was her husband Roger’s 50th birthday on 26 May 2011, and she was hosting a family dinner party at their £1.6 million house in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
Wearing four-inch court shoes with a Kooples dress, she felt in her element. But within hours, her feet were so painful she jettisoned her heels and donned espadrilles.
‘The heels were silver suede with an embellished heart on the front. But, that evening, they began to hurt my left foot and I ended up having to succumb to something more comfortable,’ she says. ‘I used to go to parties and dance all night long but suddenly I couldn’t do that any more.’
It was a lightbulb moment that would lead to her setting up the shoe brand Sole Bliss, now a favourite with royalty and Hollywood stars.
Left, Dame Helen Mirren wore a pair for the opening night of this year’s Cannes Film Festival; right, actress Julia Roberts wore a gold pair to the LA opening of her film Ticket to Paradise last year
After that evening, Kay, 59, began to research bunions (hallux valgus), which occur when the first metatarsal bone in the foot shifts outwards, and the big toe moves inwards towards the second toe, causing a bulge on the side of the foot. She discovered that more than ten million women in the UK suffer from the condition. ‘When I started researching how many women suffered like me, I couldn’t believe the numbers,’ she says. ‘I realised there was a big gap in the market.’
Even so, others took a while to be convinced. ‘I remember going out with friends to a local Italian restaurant, and they said, “Why would I buy shoes for bunions? I would prefer to wear sexy shoes. Bunions aren’t sexy.” They just wanted to have an operation to get rid of them and wear normal shoes.’
Kay, who had been working in the fashion industry as a shoe and bag designer for more than 35 years, was undeterred. She already had four shoe shops in North London and Hertfordshire. In a matter of months she had registered her brand and began testing her templates on customers.
‘When we had the shops, there was lots of opportunity to do market research,’ she says. ‘I had groups of women standing on foam to test it out. A friend of mine contacted Jo Good, the BBC Radio London presenter, who runs the Middle-Aged Minx blog, and said,
“I have the best job in the world. I’m a bunion model.” She phoned me afterwards and said, “You’ve got to speak to Jo,” and she had me on her programme talking about my shoes.’
After five years of research and development, during which Kay worked with British podiatrists and Italian artisans, she launched Sole Bliss in 2017, with four styles: two court shoes, the 2½in heel Carmen and 3½in heel Pandora, both £159, and still on sale, and slingback versions (since discontinued).
Each shoe has cutting-edge technology to contour around the bunions, as well as cushioned soles, different widths and deep toe boxes to support arches, accommodate wide feet and alleviate pressure on toes or bunions. They’re also designed to prevent pronation – the inward rolling of the feet.
Within a year, Sole Bliss had launched its £159 Ingrid shoe, a 2in block heel, a favourite of Queen Camilla who owns 13 pairs and has recommended them to Dame Mary Berry.
‘I remember an order came from Clarence House,’ says Kay. ‘You don’t forget that.’
The then Duchess of Cornwall wore the shoes at the 2018 Royal Cornwall Show and things snowballed. ‘It was before a factory trip in Italy and we were chilling at the hotel at the end of the day,’ says Kay. ‘I remember seeing the photo online. I was so excited that I spilled my drink. It has been very good for us. The fact Camilla was walking out and about in them gave us a seal of approval, especially as she was able to wear them all day.’
Sole Bliss founder Lisa Kay with her colourful Remy designs
Since then, many a celebrity has worn Sole Bliss shoes, with the £199 Remy platform sandal proving a big red-carpet hit: actress Julia Roberts (above) wore a gold pair to the LA opening of her film Ticket to Paradise last year; Olivia Colman donned them in silver for this year’s premiere of the BBC series Great Expectations (below); Countryfile presenter Anita Rani and actress Viola Davis both wore them to this year’s Baftas, while Dame Helen Mirren wore a pair for the opening night of this year’s Cannes Film Festival (above).
The company now has a turnover of £10 million and sells more than 300 styles of heels, sandals, flats and trainers. ‘It all helps when people are genuinely happy with what they wear,’ says Kay. ‘We do get spikes when famous people are seen in our shoes. Julia Roberts wore them to the Oscars and the phones rang off the hook. After Gayle King wore a pair on the red carpet with Tom Cruise for the premiere of Mission: Impossible, she talked about them on social media, which was very nice of her, and it went mad. A lot of the Loose Women presenters wear them – Nadia Sawalha posted a video about them. An ITV stylist told me there’s a long walk from the make-up room to the studio, so they need to be able to strut around.
Olivia Colman is a fan
‘Court shoes are a strong trend this autumn, but historically they are low cut so you can’t wear them over bunions. We cut them higher so everyone can wear them. It’s important to have sexy shoes in the collection. We have a court shoe that’s 95mm [3¾in]. They have closed toes this season but will be open for the summer.’
Kay has inherited her business acumen from her father Brian Somers, 86, who owned a business selling small leather goods. She grew up in Stanmore, Middlesex, with him, her mother Myrna, 83, and brother Antony, 56, who is an actor and trapeze artist – he was the ringmaster on Take That’s Circus tour and also has a sideline in soft toys.
Kay began her career as an accountant, but her heart wasn’t in it and she stopped when her son Ollie was born in 1990. A second son, Zak, followed in 1994. The move into fashion wasn’t an entirely new direction for Kay. She and her husband, whom she met in 1982 when she gate-crashed his 21st birthday party, had started a company while she was still at university, selling fluorescent PVC belts to shops in London’s Camden, Carnaby Street and Covent Garden. ‘It was punk fashion at the time,’ she says.
They got married in 1988 when she was 24 and, after the birth of their children, set up a company designing bags and shoes. ‘You do learn by your mistakes,’ she says. ‘We made hairpieces like scrunchies when they were fashionable, and they were OK, but then we did leather jewellery like earrings – disastrous!’
So how many pairs of Sole Bliss shoes does she have in her wardrobe? ‘I’ve no idea,’ she says. Whatever the number, she will be able to dance all night in them without having to switch to espadrilles.
For more information, visit solebliss.com
