Hi Amanda,
Different people will swear by different brands and styles of shoes, since we all have different foot structures/problems, etc. I happen to have long, narrow feet with some wicked bunions, and after trying practically every brand under the sun, I found that Elegance shoes worked the best for me. They didn't used to, years ago, but Ali is constantly bringing out new cuts and fabrics, so eventually, I happened upon a pair that worked wonderfully. If you live in the Southern California area, I would make a trip to the boutique to try on his shoes. It'll be hard to choose shoes online, I imagine.
If you have limited access to shoe distributors in your area, might I recommend that you take whatever shoe you are currently using and give it a good beating. I know that sounds funny, but I saw another girl doing that years ago, and it turns out that ballet dancers break in their shoes by beating them up before ever wearing them. Until I found this most recent pair that is made of a super soft leather that didn't need any breaking in, I was doing that with my Supadance court shoes and found that it was pretty effective. I began by kneading the toe box to break up the structure a bit. Then, beginning with the tip of the toe box, I would roll it up toward the shank, like you would roll a newspaper. Then I would unroll it, and re-roll it, but this time, rolling the tip down and under.
Does that make sense? Sorry, I know that's not exactly a fabulous description. The point is you want to beat up the toe box until it's soft. Then it will conform a bit better to your foot, which is very helpful when dealing with bunions.
By the way, this will reduce the aesthetic life of your shoe. I found that this didn't matter much for me since they look fairly dirty after only a few competitions anyway, and for practice, I didn't care if they looked a bit fuzzy.
I hope this helps a little bit. Good luck. I know how much bunions can suck.
