Footwear trade talk with real business grip.
Shoe-In is a footwear business show with a practical feel for how shoes get made, priced, shipped, sold, and revived. Its interviews move easily from brand origin stories to FOB costs, component choices, fit strategy, retail channels, and the economic forces squeezing the industry.
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Shoe-In covers footwear as an industry with real machinery behind it. Shoes appear here as products, but also as freight, resin, oil exposure, channel strategy, sizing grids, marketing decisions, and decades of accumulated know-how. The tone is conversational. The substance is trade-aware. Episodes often begin with light banter before settling into the practical question underneath: what does this decision cost, who does it serve, and how does it move through the market? A Grant Stone conversation centers on build quality, components, lasts, sizing, and the choice to sell the product rather than win a pricing battle. A global conflict episode follows the knock-on effect from fuel costs to resin to FOB prices, treating geopolitical disruption as a footwear input rather than a distant news item. A shipping conversation with Brent Barkin brings data and strategy into the supply-chain discussion. Brand episodes with leaders from ECCO, Oliver Cabell, Rack Room Shoes, and Dune Footwear put growth stories beside retail realities and consumer fit. The show is comfortable talking about Google search interest one minute and plantar fasciitis support the next. It also gives long careers room to breathe. Wilson W. Smith III's design series shifts from performance and fit to leadership, faith, communication, and the habits that shape creative work. Daniel Rubin's episode frames entrepreneurship through a long industry arc, including the manufacturing wake-up call of seeing shoes made in Taiwan. Mark Lardie's conversation brings retail trust, brand access, and company culture into the same frame. The show does not flatten footwear into glamour or hype. It treats the category as a working business full of suppliers, merchants, designers, economists, executives, and people who remember why face-to-face conversations still matter. The audience gets industry texture without a lecture. The questions are usually generous, but they keep returning to mechanics. How is the product built? Where does the cost land? What customer is being served? Why does this brand belong in the market now? For footwear insiders, it is familiar shop talk with useful specificity. For curious outsiders, it is a guided look at how the shoe business really thinks.
Made for: Shoe-In is for footwear professionals, brand builders, retailers, suppliers, designers, and analytically minded fans who want the business behind the product. It especially suits listeners who care about costs, sourcing, fit, retail channels, and how global forces show up in a shoe box.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating footwear trends through the mechanics of the industry: componentry, sizing, tariffs, freight, consumer reach, and cost pressure. Its interviews stay warm and conversational while still sounding like people who know the business from the inside.
Covering the ins and outs of all things footwear, from sneakers to heels, loafers to slippers and every type of shoe in between. Brought to you by the FDRA and FFANY, the footwear industry's associations focused on retail, trade, politics and fashion…helping create and enhance conversations on all things footwear.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Shoe-In makes footwear design legible through close conversations about fit, materials, manufacturing, retail strategy and the economics behind the finished product.
Shoe-In follows a shoe backward from the finished object into the decisions that shaped it. Matt Priest, Sandy Mine and Thomas Crockett lead practical conversations with footwear executives about materials, fit, manufacturing, retail and brand strategy.
One boot, 42 sizes; your shoe curiosity has entered the purchasing department.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear-eyed brand conversation about fit, components, and the limits of pricing as a story.
Shoe-In treats a footwear brand profile as a straightforward lesson in how product, pricing, and fit actually work together. Wyatt Gilmore's Grant Stone story lands best when it stays on components, lasts, and the sizing breadth the brand says it builds around.
From household fuel bills to refinery damage, Shoe-In traces footwear's delayed cost pressure.
Footwear costs land here as a delayed chain reaction, not one clean jolt at the pump. Shoe-In follows Andy Polk and Gary Raines from extra household gas spending into the places where that pressure can show up later: thinner discretionary budgets, fuel surcharges, resin costs,…
A practical check-in that turns footwear strategy into plain business talk.
PlayNext presents Mark Lardy's Rack Room Shoes check-in as a practical look at how footwear retail reaches customers. It works best when it focuses on trusted retailers, the reach brands can gain beyond direct-to-consumer channels, and the suggestion that there is still room for…
A concise look at Oliver Cabell's attempt to turn comfort engineering into a modern footwear advantage.
Oliver Cabell plays as a footwear story about a search-driven brand trying to give itself a sharper reason to matter. Founder and CEO Scott Gabrielson traces an unusual route into the category, then explains how a Taylor Made Golf collaboration exposed the limits of making a…
A footwear design conversation that finds its sharpest lesson in walking across the building.
Wilson W. Smith III gives Behind the Design a steady center, moving from his Nike and Jordan design career, including work tied to Michael Jordan and Scotty, into a wider conversation about how people work, lead, and stay connected.
A clear footwear cost discussion that follows oil pressure into budgets, freight, resin, and FOB prices.
Shoe-In follows the path from war with Iran to footwear costs through fuel, freight, resin, raw materials, FOB prices, and consumer spending. The opening lands on household budgets, with the cited $670 per household per year in added gas spending framed as money no longer…
A practical footwear discussion where 3D production runs into inventory math, import duties, and mass-market pricing.
Shoe-In frames footwear innovation through the less glamorous machinery that decides whether an idea can scale: inventory, duties, pricing, and production.
Apple decisions, examined down to the window corner.
Weekly film, music, and arts criticism from Monocle 24's Midori House studio in London.
The engineering decisions behind code, agents, and control.
This episode features an interview with Ryan Hunt, co-founder of Shloop, discussing his pivot from sustainable materials to building a footwear factory in Mississippi to explore domestic manufacturing opportunities in the U.S.
War reaches the shoe box.
Elias Stahl gets put on the spot early.
On Shoe-In, SATRA’s Harriet Stokes and Simon Courtney define comfort as “the absence of discomfort” and explain why fit varies by wearer.
Grant Stone starts with the shoe, not the price tag.
Oil is the first pressure point.
This episode features an interview with Brent Barkin, executive vice president of Ship Sigma, discussing data-driven strategies for shipping and supply chain growth in the context of trade, tariffs, and the footwear industry.
This episode features an interview with Neal Taylor, CEO of Americas for ECCO, discussing his marketing background and the brand's resurgence in the US market.
This episode features an interview with footwear industry legend Daniel Rubin, discussing his 50-year career, entrepreneurial journey, and insights from his book on the business side of footwear.
Mark Lardy gets a warm industry sendoff, but the episode stays useful.
Oliver Cabell caught FDRA's eye through search buzz, then gave the hosts a bigger story than price.
Wilson W.
This episode features an interview with designer Wilson W.
This episode features an interview with Alan Guyan, founder and CEO of Made Plus, discussing his journey from automotive automation to launching an American-made footwear company and the role of innovation and storytelling in the shoe industry.
This episode discusses spring 2026 footwear trends with industry experts, covering global insights from Hawaii and Copenhagen to Coachella.
This emergency podcast episode features an interview with Steve Reynolds, CEO of Jade Footwear, discussing the impact of global trade turbulence and tariffs on the footwear industry's supply chain and sourcing strategies.