This time of year marks the three year anniversary of when we launched Bahé with our first style, Recharge - the world's first high performance grounding shoe. In truth, it was the beginning of Bahé being out in the world after several years of working to bring our vision to life. 

We wanted to tell you a bit of the background to the design of our first style. 

Finding flow 

Bahé isn’t about just creating shoes. Our vision is to help people reconnect with nature more fully, to find a flow between Earth body and mind - to optimise human performance. 

"We found our flow state through movement in nature —pushing our limits while being fully present in our surroundings. It's the clarity that comes from physical exertion, the focus that sharpens with each step, and the connection to something bigger than ourselves. Whether it’s the rhythm of our breath or the ground beneath us, the combination of effort and the environment that fuels both performance and well-being, keeping us grounded as we move forward."

Getting grounded 

When we started thinking of how to embody this vision, we decided we wanted to create more than just a shoe that would work well for exercise in nature. Enter grounding. It’s something  we've both practiced throughout our lives. For most of that time, we would have been barefoot at the beach or in the garden, simply because it felt intuitively right, as we started to understand more around the research, it truly opened our mind to the potential it held.

And so began the idea of creating a running shoe that enabled people to be grounded even when being barefoot wasn’t possible.

Designing differently

Designing and developing shoes is a complicated process. There are many different components and you have to have every last bit designed, or you don’t have a shoe! We didn’t want to design just any shoe, we wanted to create one that could electrically connect the wearer to the earth, deliver the performance required from a high end running shoe and be crafted from materials that had a lower impact on the planet. 

We worked closely with our world-class production partner who fully believed in our vision, focusing on every element of the shoes, testing and trialing each component and searching for the perfect balance between sustainability and performance. This meant trialing different materials and techniques, wearer trialling for comfort, weight, breathability and feel, all to achieve what we wanted. For every component and material, our priority was to use plant-based options,  as seen in our organic cotton laces, 70% bio-based insole and 65% natural rubber outsole. Where this wasn’t possible we sought to find recycled alternatives like our 100% recycled upper. 

 

Creating the ‘ground flow system’

Another challenge we faced was making the shoes conductive so that you would be grounded when wearing them. Performance shoes are made from a series of lightweight foams and rubber outsoles - all of which are insulators, this was no easy task, especially as we had to make sure that any method we used didn’t adversely affect the weight, flexibility or durability. 

What we eventually created was our ‘ground flow system’, a series of conductive elements between the ground and your foot, inside the shoe. To make this work, we developed a rubber compound using a carbon additive this made the entire outsole conductive. We then used a series of metallic webbing and stitching to continue the unbroken chain of conductivity between the midsole layer and the insole, where your foot touches. Since developing our first shoe, every production run has featured tweaks and updates to optimise the conductivity levels and every pair is tested against industry standards to ensure the conductivity is the close to that of human skin. 

A shoe for every occasion - Creating a Hybrid runner

The vision for Recharge was to create a daily running shoe, one that would be true to that name, not compromising on comfort across a variety of environments. The Recharge was built to be comfortable on roads, runs through the park and when taking on more rugged trails while immersing yourself deeply in nature. 

To create this we needed to focus on every element from the ground up. We spent hours working on every detail of the tread pattern to optimise grip across a range of terrains. When focussing on the midsole, the choice of material properties was key, we wanted to find the perfect balance between a shoe that was plush and comfortable enough to cover high mileage, whilst also having a responsive feel that would provide high energy return. To balance this we developed an insole from a 70% bio-based highly durable foam that delivered incredible in-shoe comfort.

With the upper, the focus was on achieving breathability and durability for year-round comfort when exploring the great outdoors. We did this by combining a recycled mesh upper with carefully positioned splash-proof panels, making the lightweight runner a surprisingly rugged workhorse. 

Next steps

Recharge created the foundation for everything we have since done at Bahé. It created a template that we could  tweak and adapt for future iterations such as our barefoot-style running shoe Revive which shares the same materials and hybrid concept, on a low profile, thinner and more flexible sole and built on a more foot-shaped last for a different feel. This led to the fit and sole structure of our Rediscover boot. 

Behind the scenes we continue to innovate, looking forward as we start 2025 , it will be an exciting year for us. We plan to launch more options to further enhance your connection with nature, we’re so glad to have you along for the ride.