Foot Care Brand Pedestrian Project Launches – WWD

For Pedestrian Project, foot care is the next wellness frontier. 

The foot care category, which is expected to be a $4.4 million global market by 2026 according to Research and Markets, has long been dominated by legacy brands and scattered across retail shelves.

Newcomer Pedestrian Project hopes to change that. The line, which has been in development for more than three years, aims to create a beauty-inspired, aesthetically pleasing, clean and efficacious product line to disrupt what it considers a sleepy and dated category. 

For cofounder Kristen Doyle, formerly of Unilever and Virtue Labs, years of running and having children had taken a toll on her feet. 

“The skin on my heels just gave out…and they were chronically dry and cracked, so a couple of years ago, I went to the drugstore to look for a solution. I stood in the aisle and was just so surprised at how outdated and uninspired the category was,” she said. “It hasn’t evolved the same way that hair care, skin care, femme care has.” 

With this in mind, Doyle and cofounder Matt Jacobs, who also recently founded the New York City Office of the AMP Agency (a digital marketing agency), began creating Pedestrian Project, focusing on clean formulas, elevated packaging, appealing scents and luxurious textures. 

The brand launched with four clean, vegan foot-caring stock keeping units with plant butters and oils as ingredients. The lineup includes Walker’s Cream, $12; Cracked Heel Repair, $14; CBD Relief Balm, $30, and a Purifying Foot Soak, $14, which are all available on the brand’s website and on Amazon. 

“For those folks who are really conscious about how they care for their body, what they put in their body, we know that our ingredient story helps differentiate,” said Jacobs. “We’re taking a more modern approach to the category.” 

The brand is taking a digital-first approach. While the team plans to bring Pedestrian Project to traditional retail, digital content is key as they aim to educate consumers on foot care. One way the brand is doing so is by bringing on a group of podiatrist advisers who are creating content for Pedestrian Project’s Instagram and TikTok channels. The brand’s website is also packed with foot-related educational content. 

This brand launch follows another recent launch in the foot care category: Dr. Barbara Sturm partnered with designer brand Aquazzura to launch an exclusive capsule shoe collection along with a refreshing foot spray.

Pedestrian Project declined to share sales figures, but industry sources estimate it could do up to $1 million its first year.

As a wellness brand, Pedestrian Project will remain focused on the foot care category through plans to expand outside of topicals with two types of comforting insoles, including one specifically designed for heels, which will launch later this year.