After launching footwear last fall, Mark Wahlberg’s premium performance brand Municipal is doubling down on the category with a steady cadence of new releases planned through 2025.
In an exclusive interview with FN, Municipal chief executive officer Harry Arnett laid out the growing brand’s footwear pipeline for the season’s ahead, starting with the release of five new colorways of the company’s debut style – the Origin sneaker.
Launching today, the Origin is now available in black/black/lime, gray/gray/gum, ice/ice/poppy, white/black/natural and white/white/white colorways and remains at the retail price of $180.
These added colors come after Municipal launched its debut Origin sneaker model in partnership with P448 parent company StreetTrend in six colorways in October. At the time of the release, the company described the sneaker as a multi-functional performance shoe that boasts “extreme comfort and innovation.”
Wahlberg, who made a “significant minority investment” in StreetTrend in 2022, called the footwear company in a statement at the time “the ideal partner” for Municipal’s expansion into sneakers. “We’ve taken special care to build Municipal in a certain way and we’re getting a lot of traction by fusing cool style with versatility, comfort, and performance that is tailor-made to do something innovative in the category,” he said at the time.
The brand’s entire range of shoes feature Municipal’s M. Float comfort technology, which is based on sandwiching different compound densities on an anatomical baseline last composed of rubber, memory foam, 40 shore EVA and latex.
In March, the company released its second footwear model, the Podium Slide.
“We want to create a ton of value for consumers,” Arnett told FN in an interview last week. “We are setting a high bar for the category and for ourselves. We have a really phenomenal product pipeline on the way.”
According to Arnett, the next style to come will be a hybrid sneaker called the Sport Cross. The CEO noted that it will be multi-functional for many sports, including golf and outdoor trail running.
“This one has three different technologies, M. Float being one of them,” the CEO said. “Plus, it has a completely waterproof system, and a brand-new grip system that gives the traction and grip of a cleat, but in a sneaker, which we think is super cool. We think not only will golfers and outdoor enthusiast love this shoe, but we think that it’s also cool enough that a lot of non-golfers and non-outdoor enthusiast will like it as well.”
Moving into spring 2025, Arnett teased a new workout-focused shoe called the Cross Trainer. “This is Mark’s baby,” he said. “We’ve been working on this one for two and half years. We’re really excited about this one and it will feature a lot of the same tech that’s in the Origin and Sport Cross.”
Looking ahead, Arnett noted that the company will continue to add at least one new shoe every six months – with a court shoe and a running sneaker in the works that will drop in early 2026.
As far as where the label’s shoes are sold, Arnett added that Scheels is one of its largest wholesale accounts, with a few other boutiques making up the rest of its mix.
“Shoes are becoming the first thing we talk about in our meetings,” Arnett said with a laugh. “We joke all the time that suddenly, we’re a shoe company, which we never really thought would be the case. There’s a lane that we didn’t even expect would be open to a smaller brand like ours in the footwear industry.”
And shoes aren’t the only thing on Arnett and Wahlberg’s plate. The duo just opened the doors to its first permanent store in West Hollywood, Calif. earlier this month. The new outpost at 8609 Melrose Avenue comes after a seven-month-long pop-up that opened last November at New York City’s Hudson Yards.
Arnett noted the company will open the doors to its new 6,000-sq.-ft. flagship in the San Diego area later this year. “It will be connected to our headquarters and will feature a barber shop, a coffee shop and a lounge space,” he said. “Over the next five to 10 years, we plan on opening more stores across the country in about 15 to 20 markets.”
