Two years ago, Sarah and Chris Rhoads were outsiders in the footwear industry. But that didn’t stop the husband and wife duo from creating Commbi, their shoe brand that officially launched this week.
Derived from the word “combination,” Commbi debuted online on Tuesday with four styles — three slides and one mule — in various colorways and textures for both men and women. The shoes’ defining features are their removable and interchangeable footbeds, the manifestation of the original idea that made Commbi a reality in 2022.
At the time, the Rhoads were spending long days on their feet building their creative agency and photography studio, We Are The Rhoads. They were spending several 10 to 12-hour days shooting campaigns for Coca-Cola, New Balance and Toms and realized they needed more support from their footwear. But they didn’t want to sacrifice style.
“This really came out of a place of need,” said Sarah, one half of the Los-Angeles-based couple. “I had tried every supposed orthotic or comfortable slide or shoe, and it just wasn’t quite living up to its promise.”
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Eventually, Sarah started wearing insoles on top of her slides to get through long days on set, a temporary solution that eventually gave her and her husband the idea for a shoe with a removable footbed.
“Because I was sort of shoving these insoles into my shoes, we thought, ‘How nice would it be if people had the option to basically have a capsule collection for their shoes and be able to customize their footwear experience and make it a little more personalized to them?'” Sarah said.
So after spending close to 15 years in business together in business as creative directors, the Rhoads set out on a new venture: to create a new shoe that delivered on both style and function. Both new to the industry, the couple sought insights from experts and partnered with a podiatrist to prioritize body alignment in their footbed. They bootstrapped the brand and raised some money via a small friends and family investing round.
“At first, we thought surely this has been out there,” Chris said, describing the early stages of starting the brand. “As we dug in, we realized there’s a unique niche here that really isn’t being targeted.”
In addition to its comfort and stylistic attributes, Commbi’s footbed model also helps address footwear waste by giving consumers the ability to replace one element of a used shoe instead of the entire product. Commbi also uses recycled paper in its packaging and opts to transport products by ocean as opposed to air, which creates less carbon emissions.
Prices for the shoes, which are manufactured in Asia, range between $150 and $180, depending on the style. Commbi is launching with eight different interchangeable footbed options, which range from terry cloth and vegan leather to shearling. Each footbed pair retails for between $35 and $45.
Looking ahead, the Rhoads are thinking big. The pair has their sights set on wholesale expansion following the online, direct-to-consumer launch. They are also planning future product lines and are currently patent-pending on their replaceable footbed design.
While the couple started this process as shoe industry novices, they now see their non-footwear background as an advantage.
“We had never made shoes before. We had no idea what we were doing. But we leaned into what we’ve honed as creatives for last 15 years,” said Sarah. “Sometimes being an outsider in an industry that has been doing things one way for a long time can be refreshing.”
