KITH Founder: How to Build a Brand With Cult-Level Loyalty
Two hours with Ronnie Fieg on 15 years of Kith: no paid ads, no wholesale, no outside money, and $1,300-a-foot stores that his CFO still cannot explain.
Posted
1 weeks ago
Duration
Format
Interview
sincere
Views
296.5K
3.7K likes
57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
A brand earns cult loyalty by running every product through one unswayable point of view, charging less than it is worth, and spending on the places and stories where customers form their own emotion instead of buying attention.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A founder building a physical-product or apparel brand who wants to understand how one survives and scales without paid acquisition.
An operator weighing whether to spend on stores, experiences, or events versus performance marketing, and wanting a real P&L-level argument for the former.
A designer or creative director deciding whether to broaden the line or stay narrow, and worried about confusing the audience.
Anyone negotiating a collaboration or licensing deal who wants to see how the asks that get a reflexive no eventually get approved.
A collector, retailer, or buyer who wants to hear how 31 years of handling product turns into taste.
SKIP IF…
You want a step-by-step growth playbook with channels and budgets. This is a founder explaining feel, devotion, and fifteen years of compounding decisions.
You run a software or service business and need tactics that translate directly. The lessons are real but you will have to do the translation yourself.
You are looking for the trailer-promised 'full playbook' in the episode itself. The host repeatedly points to a separate free PDF for that.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Kith grew for fifteen years without paid ads, influencers, wholesale, or outside capital because every product passes through one founder's lens and the business keeps reinvesting every dollar of profit. The core mechanisms are consistency of taste while style evolves, a pricing rule of giving people more than they pay for, and a shift from scarcity-as-luxury to emotion-as-luxury, delivered through stores that cost more per foot than some luxury houses, a Monday drop every week for eight years, and collaborations framed as teaching the partner brand's history. The practical conclusions: do not let your taste be swayed, refit every block when the fabric changes, keep putting the chips back in, and expect the real cost to be family time and friendships.
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Cold open on the 'it cost me everything' answer, then a montage of the episode's claims: no paid ads, no influencers, no wholesale, and a full playbook promised for those who stay to the end.
01:08 – 10:17
02 · What 15 years on the sales floor taught him
An ASICS director's quote about never cutting corners for margin sets up the product conversation. Ten years selling shoes, fifty footwear brands a quarter, 150 pairs of Dolomite boots in his parents' garage. Ideas come from a 31-year mental catalog of product. The customer is him; 2,200 shoe styles in 15 years, all through one lens.
10:17 – 17:57
03 · The difference between taste and style
Taste stays the same, style evolves with age. If your taste can be swayed, you do not have a point of view. Why Kith Treats cereal capsules and a Giorgio Armani collection can drop a week apart: the brand is for people who know the difference between great and good, and it is everything he loves, from film to music to the F train.
17:57 – 21:45
04 · The golf collab he almost said no to
The one project that did not stem from his passion. His VP of product and COO love golf, so he studied the category from the outside in, built the all-black and gradient-metal TaylorMade sets, and turned a category he refused to touch into one of the brand's most successful sports releases.
21:45 – 29:00
05 · The 2007 ASICS shoe nobody recognized
The first ASICS project opened an inline category for a generation. Retro tech is cyclical. Tertiary brands like ASICS, Diadora, Reebok, and Fila are where a young brand can start. Then the archive: laying out every shoe from 2011 on a full office floor, 1,200 unreleased samples, and the 'Walk the Index' exhibit.
29:00 – 39:10
06 · Why he walked away from 800 visitors a day
COVID felt like the brand could go to zero. The biggest early bet: breaking a successful ten-year lease on Broadway and Bleecker to move to a crumbling building on a block of Lafayette with no foot traffic. He wanted 300 people a day and relationships, got the old traffic back in two months, and says the flagship is why the brand is what it is. He has never taken chips off the table.
39:10 – 43:46
07 · Six samples to get one hoodie right
Polished rollouts make the work look easy. A sun-faded Yankees hoodie took six sample rounds. Most big brands change a fabric and never refit the block, which is why a style suddenly fits wrong. He was the brand's fit model for 13 of 15 years, three to four hours a week.
43:46 – 51:16
08 · Give people more than what they pay for
Pricing is not margin-first. He still sits through the buy for four or five hours a week pricing every item, and will not sell for double just because he could. Peruvian cotton, washes done in China, the misconception about where things are made, and three weeks on a Dominican factory line learning to build a shoe from scratch.
51:16 – 57:18
09 · He still buys 6 to 8 pairs of shoes a week
Japan as a happy place and a lesson in purposeful collecting. Six to eight pairs of early-2000s deadstock on eBay every week, two sets of Hiroshi HTM Air Force 1s, temperature-controlled storage units. What he looks for in another brand's shoe: did you overshadow the partner's DNA. Today buying is half product, half storytelling.
57:18 – 1:02:39
10 · The new luxury is emotion, not price
Product has to be special, which means limited. Scarcity has always been luxury and has nothing to do with price; fashion houses lost it by opening too many stores. The new luxury is a stack of emotions: purpose for walking in, the product you gravitate to, and how you feel after. Value is a word destroyed by down-market retail.
1:02:39 – 1:10:11
11 · Why Kith spends on stores, not ads
No paid marketing because they do not have to; he is not interested in doubling top line if it means an emotion created for people instead of by them. The minute curiosity goes away the brand is in trouble. Stores cost $1,000 to $1,300 a foot in a vanilla box, more than some luxury houses, and the CFO is still puzzled. The brand now has a brain of its own.
1:10:11 – 1:13:59
12 · Why Kith drops something new every Monday
Eight years of Monday releases, 52 a year, sometimes two hats and sometimes a full collection. The next year is planned by the week so content, editing, and experiential teams can work ahead. The calendar is a Rubik's Cube because product always ships late. Then the host's mid-roll pitch for the free playbook PDF.
1:13:59 – 1:19:54
13 · The BMW poster that became a collab
The E30 M3 was a poster on his wall and his grandfather's car. The collab tells a past-and-present story, putting the original DTM driver and his son on the same track in the E30 M3 and the new M4. Apparel is the entry point for people who cannot buy the car. Transferring emotion is the job; watching strangers smile at the first Kith Treats window mattered more than the store.
1:19:54 – 1:27:33
14 · The ideas BMW and Coca-Cola said no to
The Kith logo inside the BMW roundel was an automatic no, three times. Kith in the Coke script on a contour bottle was a hard no. He wins by explaining intent in every meeting himself, by treating Coca-Cola as a lifestyle brand instead of a beverage, and by pointing to how Japan up-specs American brands.
1:27:33 – 1:32:03
15 · The trips where nobody is asked to post
He is the connector in his friend group, and the brand is the only platform where he gets to see those friends. Twenty-five people in matching ski kits taking over a mountain in Hokkaido, or all of Amangiri. No hashtag, no ask, ever. The organic content follows because people post what they love. A fifteenth-anniversary event in early October is teased as the biggest moment of his career.
1:32:03 – 1:36:14
16 · Why Giorgio Armani is his proudest collab
Armani was always the pinnacle. Three or four years of conversation before meeting him, a book built to pay respect to the archetypes he dressed, and initial skepticism that turned once the purpose was explained. The host says it was the moment the brand crossed into a different universe.
1:36:14 – 1:46:53
17 · From lifelong fan to Knicks creative director
Eighth collection with the Knicks, started long before the team was good. The role is applying the same emotional lens to aesthetics and digital content. Championship-run stories, missing games after melanoma surgery, and a tease of a Walt Frazier celebration this season.
1:46:53 – 1:52:44
18 · What building Kith has cost him
Would he sell? Nothing is a hard yes or no, but not right now. The cost is everything: weddings, birthdays, vacations, and never building true friendships, all willingly. Devotion, work ethic, and purpose are what he would pass down. Nobody is willing to spend 15 years in a stock room anymore, and polished end results are partly to blame.
1:52:44 – 1:54:12
19 · How Kith mentors high school students
The Kinnect Foundation brings a cohort of 15 high-school juniors into the business each year, assigns mentors by department, and gets every one of them to college.
1:54:12 – 1:56:44
20 · Every Kith shoe in one book
The 15-year book is the heaviest Assouline has made. Every shoe reshot over eight months by the brand's original photographer, organized by brand and chronology, with an index where bold entries are released styles and non-bold are the samples that led to them.
1:56:44 – 1:59:14
21 · Where Kith goes in the next 15 years
The end point is when he dies. He wants to change human behavior through lifestyle, starting with the Ivy membership club and expanding into hospitality and categories people in his position would not dare touch.
1:59:14 – 2:06:45
22 · Quickstrike questions
Rapid fire: one word for friends and collaborators, each sneaker brand's superpower, top three shoes in his collection, the LeBron LA-store opening as the breakthrough moment, Mount Rushmore of campaigns, favorite book and podcast, and 'no ceiling' as the last answer.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
A brand with one unswayable point of view is easy to follow for fifteen years because the line is additive, never a reset.
Taste should stay the same for a lifetime while style evolves with age; if your taste can be swayed by social media, you do not have a point of view.
Scarcity has always been a form of luxury, and it has nothing to do with price; luxury houses lose it by opening too many doors.
The new luxury is emotion, not price point: the purpose of walking in, the product you gravitate to, and how you feel after you buy.
Give people more than what they pay for, even when you could sell the item for double, and they will figure out the value later.
Most brands change a garment's fabric without refitting the block, which is why the same style suddenly fits wrong.
A sun-faded hoodie took six sample rounds to get the fade, color, embroidery, and fit right; nothing that looks simple is simple.
Spending $1,000 to $1,300 per square foot on a store is a marketing budget; the store is the website.
Kith does not run paid ads because curiosity does the work, and the minute curiosity goes away the brand is in serious trouble.
Moving from 800 walk-ins a day to a block with no foot traffic was a bet on relationships over volume, and traffic matched within two months.
Self-funding to global scale is possible only if the founder never takes the chips off the table; all profit went back into the company.
The ideas partners say no to three or four times, like a logo inside the BMW roundel or Kith in the Coca-Cola script, are the ones that move the needle.
A collaboration should teach people why the partner brand matters; the apparel is an entry point for people who cannot buy the car.
Twenty-five friends in matching ski kits taking over a mountain in Hokkaido generates more organic content than any briefed campaign, and nobody is ever asked to post.
A weekly Monday drop for eight straight years means the whole next year is planned by the week so content, editing, and events teams can do great work.
The brand eventually develops its own brain; after fifteen years of consistency the founder makes decisions for the brand, not for himself.
Devotion and purpose are the price of a lasting brand; the hidden cost is weddings, birthdays, vacations, and friendships you never built.
Polished product photography makes the work look easy, which is exactly why younger builders look for a fast track that does not exist.
Takeaway
One lens, underpriced product, and stores instead of ads.
WHAT TO LEARN
Loyalty compounds when every product passes through one unswayable taste, costs less than it is worth, and is sold in places and stories where people form their own emotion.
02What 15 years on the sales floor taught him
Spend years handling product before designing it; a mental catalog of what people loved and why is where original ideas come from.
Decide early whether you are the customer. If the answer is yes, say so, and accept that the point of view is the hardest thing for anyone to copy.
03The difference between taste and style
Keep taste constant and let style evolve; a line that is additive rather than reinvented is easy to follow for fifteen years.
A wide range only confuses people who have not put the time in. Build for the people who know the difference between great and good.
04The golf collab he almost said no to
Say no to categories you have no passion for until someone inside the culture of your company gives you a reason to study them properly.
Coming from outside a category is an advantage once you have done the research; the obvious conventions are the ones to break.
05The 2007 ASICS shoe nobody recognized
Look at secondary and distressed brands as collaboration partners; they are where a young brand gets room to define a silhouette.
Keep every sample you make. Laying out your whole body of work in order shows how far a product can evolve while staying the same.
06Why he walked away from 800 visitors a day
Expect moments where the business feels like it could go to zero; surviving a few of them is what separates a brand from a project.
Trading volume for relationships can be the right move. Fewer, better visits beat heavy traffic from people who are not your customer.
Self-funding to scale requires never taking profit off the table; every dollar went back into stores, offices, and product.
07Six samples to get one hoodie right
Polished output hides the work. Budget for multiple sample rounds even on items that look simple.
Refit every block whenever the fabric changes; skipping that step is why familiar styles suddenly fit wrong.
Someone senior should be in the fitting room regularly. Thirteen years with one consistent eye on fit is a quality system, not a quirk.
08Give people more than what they pay for
Price below what you could charge. Customers calculate cost per wear later, and getting more than they paid for is what brings them back.
Learn how your product is physically made, down to the factory line; you cannot speak credibly about quality you have never touched.
Where a product is made matters less than quality control, fabric, and construction; the country-of-origin assumption is usually wrong.
09He still buys 6 to 8 pairs of shoes a week
Collect for yourself and with purpose, not for resale; it is how taste stays sharp decades in.
When evaluating a collaboration, check whether the partner's DNA still shows or whether it was overshadowed by over-design.
Today roughly half of why anyone buys is the product and half is the story around it; neglect either and the other cannot carry it.
10The new luxury is emotion, not price
Scarcity is still luxury and has nothing to do with price, so limit quantities even on inexpensive items.
Design the emotional sequence: the reason to walk in, the product they gravitate to, how they feel after, and whether strangers ask about it.
Make the space worth visiting even for people who buy nothing; a $7 ice cream can make someone feel part of the world.
11Why Kith spends on stores, not ads
Paid ads can double top line while creating an emotion for the customer instead of letting them form their own; decide which you want.
Curiosity is the moat. Track whether people still want to know what you are doing next, because paid attention does not replace it.
Treat the store as the website and fund it like one, even when the spreadsheet says a quarter of the spend would sell the same product.
After enough consistency the brand develops its own logic; make decisions for the brand rather than for your current personal taste.
12Why Kith drops something new every Monday
A fixed weekly release trains the audience to show up and forces the team to plan a full year by the week.
Plan the calendar as a Rubik's Cube; product ships late, so protect the sequence rather than the individual date.
13The BMW poster that became a collab
Start a collaboration from a real personal connection, then find the cultural history and stage it so people learn why the thing mattered.
Collab apparel is an entry ticket for people who cannot buy the hero product; design it to let them into the culture.
The feeling on a stranger's face is the KPI; measure a launch by that before measuring it by the store.
14The ideas BMW and Coca-Cola said no to
The ideas a partner rejects three times are the ones that will define the project; keep explaining the intent yourself.
Treat the partner as a lifestyle brand, not a product, and the bottle or the badge becomes the base of a bigger story.
Look at how other markets elevate your partner's brand; Japan's treatment of American brands is a free design brief.
15The trips where nobody is asked to post
Bring your real friends into the world of the brand with no posting obligation; what they share because they loved it outperforms any brief.
Twice-a-year trips also solve the founder's loneliness problem; build the brand so it creates the time you otherwise do not have.
16Why Giorgio Armani is his proudest collab
The proudest work is the aspirational partner you chased for years; expect a long courtship and initial skepticism before yes.
When a collaboration confuses part of your audience, that is sometimes the point; it opens a new group without closing the old one.
18What building Kith has cost him
Build with purpose and devotion, and know in advance that the price is family time, weddings, and friendships you never get to build.
Nothing is a hard yes or no forever; think three to five years out and take it one day at a time.
Younger builders see finished product and look for a fast track; showing the process, even imperfectly, is the honest counterweight.
19How Kith mentors high school students
Mentoring a small cohort each year with real exposure to the business is a repeatable way to pass on access, not just advice.
20Every Kith shoe in one book
A retrospective that shows the samples next to the released product teaches the audience what the work actually costs.
21Where Kith goes in the next 15 years
Define the end point of the brand as your own life, not an exit, and the strategic questions change shape.
Expanding into hospitality or membership makes sense when the goal is changing how people live, not just what they wear.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Block
The base pattern and body of a garment style before fabric is applied. A block that fit in one fabric will fit differently in a heavier or lighter one unless it is refit.
Fit model
The person whose body a brand uses to test and adjust how every sample fits before approving production.
Sample round
One iteration of a prototype garment or shoe sent back to the factory with corrections. Multiple rounds are normal before a product is approved.
The buy
The merchandising session where a retailer decides which items to order, in what quantities, and at what retail price.
Monday program
Kith's standing weekly release, dropping something new every Monday for roughly eight years, often as an appetizer for a larger collection later in the week.
Wholesale
Selling your product through other retailers such as department stores rather than only your own stores and site. Kith has never done it.
Vanilla box
A retail space delivered as a bare shell with no finishes, which the tenant then builds out at their own cost.
Consumer surplus
The economic term for the gap between what a customer would have paid and what they actually paid. The host uses it to describe Kith's underpricing.
Retro tech
Industry shorthand for performance shoes from past decades that now sell as lifestyle product because they were ahead of their time.
DS
Deadstock. Collector slang for a vintage shoe that has never been worn and is still in original condition.
Roundel
BMW's circular blue-and-white badge. Putting another brand's logo inside it is normally forbidden.
Walk the Index
The exhibit and back-of-book index for Kith's 15-year footwear archive, laying out every released shoe and the unreleased samples that led to it in chronological order.
Quickstrike
A sneaker-industry term for a limited surprise release. The podcast borrows it for its rapid-fire closing questions.
“People will look at a hoodie and think they put a logo on a hoodie. There's six samples in the process of getting that fade to look right.”
Concrete number that reframes a 'simple' product.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
43:55
“Give people more than what they pay for. That's the motto. If we feel like we could sell a product for double, I won't do it just because I could.”
The pricing philosophy in two sentences.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
57:58
“Scarcity will always be a form of luxury. Scarcity has nothing to do with price.”
Punchy and contrarian for a market obsessed with MSRP.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
58:51
“There's a new form of luxury now, where it's not based on the price point. It's based on the emotion.”
The thesis line for the whole luxury segment.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
1:03:13
“I'm not interested in doubling up. I'm interested in people organically connecting to the brand, creating their own emotion to the brand and not having an emotion created for them.”
The no-paid-ads answer, delivered after the host says Meta could double revenue.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
1:03:54
“The minute the curiosity goes away, we're going to be in a shitload of trouble. And a lot of brands are lacking that curiosity from the consumer.”
Names the real moat and the real risk.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
1:05:29
“We're spending more than some luxury houses on our spaces. That's between $1,000 to $1,300 a foot. That decision has puzzled my CFO.”
A hard number plus a CFO punchline.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
1:09:38
“The brand has a brain because it's been consistent for 15 years. I'm not thinking for myself. I'm thinking for the brand at this point.”
Memorable image of a brand outgrowing its founder's preferences.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
1:19:45
“That is the KPI, is the feeling.”
Host's summary of the Kith Treats story; five words, instantly quotable.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
1:30:48
“I haven't asked anybody to post anything ever. Like literally ever.”
Lands hard after describing 25 friends in matching kits on a mountain.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
1:47:18
“Devotion is such an important word. What I've sacrificed: the family time, the weddings, the birthdays, the vacations. I haven't been able to build really true friendships.”
The honest cost of the brand, rare from a founder at this level.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
1:48:11
“No agenda is a friendship. That's what friendships are.”
A tangent line that stands alone.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
1:49:36
“People are moving without purpose. I'm not cut from that cloth and I don't come from that era. Half my life is pre-internet, and I'm so thankful for that.”
Generational critique with a personal anchor.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
2:03:24
“Every day should be unwrapped like a precious gift.”
His one piece of life advice, offered instead of business advice.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
01:08 – 10:17denseOrigin of taste: the sales floor and the mental catalog
10:17 – 17:57denseTaste vs style, and why one lens can hold a wide line
17:57 – 29:00steadyCollaboration case studies: TaylorMade, ASICS, the archive
29:00 – 39:10denseRisk, self-funding, and the Lafayette flagship bet
51:16 – 57:18steadyCollecting, Japan, and evaluating other brands' product
57:18 – 1:02:39denseLuxury, scarcity, emotion, and value
1:02:39 – 1:13:59denseNo paid ads, store spend, and the weekly drop machine
1:13:59 – 1:36:14denseHow collabs are conceived and negotiated: BMW, Coca-Cola, Armani
1:27:33 – 1:32:03steadyFriend trips and organic distribution
1:36:14 – 1:46:53sparseKnicks creative direction and championship run
1:46:53 – 1:59:14denseCost, devotion, legacy, foundation, the book, the future
1:59:14 – 2:06:45sparseRapid-fire questions
The Script
Word for word.
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metaphorstory
What does kith cost you personally that people can't see? That's a great question, man. Everything.
It's cost me everything. Ronnie Feig is the founder, CEO, and creative director of Kith, one of the most influential lifestyle brands in the world. He's built an empire around his personal taste, turning his point of view into collaborations with BMW, Nike, Giorgio Armani, and more.
Give people more than what they pay for. That's the motto. I'm interested in people connecting to the brand.
The minute the curiosity goes away, it could all go to zero. Ronnie opens up 15 years of the Kith archive, showing us how he thinks about product. and stories that he's never told publicly.
People are moving without purpose. I'm not cut from that cloth and I don't come from that era. Really, the brand is my life.
So the endpoint is when I die. You know, nobody knows this. I haven't told this publicly, but...
No paid ads, no influencers, no wholesale. This man has built a monster without doing the stuff that everybody says you have to do. Stay to the end.
We're going to give you guys the full playbook on how he built Kith. I want to tell you a quote that I heard from Colin Brookley, A6 sports style director. I spoke to him last night about you.
One of the best people, by the way. One of the best. What he said about you, you know exactly what people want.
You're obsessed with over delivering value for the price. You always think as the consumer, you never want someone to pay X and get Y. You are a stickler on quality and you will never cut corners for margin.
You are the best in class in your commitment to the customer. He had a lot of things to say about you, but he just said it was a maniacal obsession that you would just never cut corners, which makes sense knowing the end product. So let's just go fucking deep into product.
Why don't you just walk us through like your actual process of a spark in your head to getting it on the shelf? I think a lot of people are very, very curious what that looks like.
That process can range in so many different ways. Product is created in a million different lanes, I would say. Like we have so many different ways of doing things, but when we think about footwear specifically, because that's the quote that Colin gave you about footwear, I spent 15 years on the floor, on the sales floor, like seeing, imagine like being a buyer and open to call it 50 brands of footwear.
and seeing product quarterly for what these brands are offering, but then also having the knowledge of why people gravitate towards certain product, like what they like about the product. And is this just you being maniacal with asking questions when consumers come in? Yeah, because I was a salesperson first for years.
For 10 years, I was selling footwear, right? So when people would come in... Their questions and curiosity back then before they were led by social media or led to like certain things because of seeing other people wearing it, they would come in and I would say 50 % of it was functional and 50 % of it was fashion, you know, and on both ends, I got to see why people liked product.
So the spark, the idea that I have on making certain product always stems, I think, from that. from having my own sense of individuality and liking certain things for my own reasons. My own reasons are building blocks for 31 years.
From 1995, putting boxes on shelves, but spending quality time with product, coming into the basement, opening boxes, seeing what they look like, feeling, touching. I got to see the Made in Italy era of boots. That was incredible.
The Made in England Clarks. craftsmanship on another level that era you know and that that formed I think my taste in product is the ability to see so much product and having to have a point of view on what I liked you can't like it all if there's like you know 500 styles on the wall you're eventually going to pick what you like most and then what you like most you know thinking about it from Today, like seeing things for the first time and liking them for your own reasons might not be a language that people understand today.
I don't think that's in existence anymore. I think everybody's influenced because they see it first on social and then how is it getting positioned in the marketplace? So familiarity has become a very important, I think, starting point for people on how they can like something, right?
For me, it wasn't about that at all. For me, I liked newness in footwear because I've gotten to see so many different styles over the years that if you were to tweak and change things by 10%, it could make a huge difference, right? Within the category.
So there's subcategories of footwear and I got to study all of them. And I got to love footwear like in totality. So I'm not a sneaker guy.
I'm a footwear guy because brown shoes and boots to me are as important as sneakers. In fact, Like some of the first products that I collected were Dolomite boots.
Wow. There was a time when I had like 150 pairs of Dolomites because I would spend all of my money, my checks on boots, you know, and it got to the point where I was filling my parents' garage with these boots. And it was an obsession that I can't explain because it didn't have resale value.
I just loved the product so much that I needed to have all of it because it would disappear the next season. some of those styles would disappear and then you'd be offered new product. And I didn't want to miss the opportunity on some of those products, you know?
So my taste and how I started to collect in my life started with brown shoes and boots. So fast forward to like when I have an idea and when it's, you know, my ideas come from the catalog of all the product that I've seen. So imagine I see...
One brand have this like really unique colorway of call it like a trail runner. And I see that colorway in a trail runner and I like the uniqueness of it within the category. And then 20 years later, I'm working on running shoes or retro running, call it.
And I think back to like. what's a unique color palette or unique color blocking or a unique point of view on a colorway, I go back in my brain for the catalog that I have. And I get to like reference some of the stuff that I loved back then.
And that's, I think that that's, that's to me, it's, it's very rewarding to get to relive some of those moments that I loved so much in the nineties, early two thousands that I get to apply to product that I built today. And that's really what it's from. That's really where it comes from.
So ultimately you're a historian and you're going into the archives and you're kind of cross -pollinating, whether it be a colorway, maybe you're like, hey, I like this suede, I like this new book, and you're kind of mixing and matching and then going off of kind of whatever that DNA is from that past one and kind of infusing it with the gift DNA?
That's just one example. There are so many different examples that I could give you, but I'm just going to give you one that is really true to my history. my knowledge that I have in footwear.
I don't know if there's anyone in my world of footwear that has seen as many products as I've seen over the years. Like it's 31 years now of really being immersed, not only in athletic footwear, like I said, but also brown shoes and boots, which play a huge part as to how I think about footwear as a whole. And some of those elements are applied even to the athletic footwear world.
that we've been able to build. I'm confused in a sense that I think most people are like, are you the ICP? Are you the customer?
Are you building this for you? Or are you building this for your customer? Because I do feel like over the years, your customer base has expanded.
Where like, I have my 14 -year -old nephew loving it. And then the guy that works here said he has 9 ,000 points on kit. He's a 45 -year -old guy that works at this place.
So who's the customer? And how do you think through that? Is it strategic or is it just you?
It's me. Wow. And I think that that's like...
I think what, what has been, I think the hardest part of our business to replicate has, I think has been the point of view. So the point of view and the lens has always been me, every single footwear project. And that's why this book is so important for the 15 year, which we'll get into.
That's why this book is so important because there's 2 ,200 styles of shoes in 15 years that I worked on. And I worked on every single one, like never phoned in anything I've ever done in footwear, never. And I think that, you know, Colin's quote, if you speak to anyone I worked with at any footwear brand, they'll have similar things to say because we geek out about it.
Like, it's like, this is like my livelihood. I love this shit, you know? And it's, it has grown to become more than I ever wanted it to become.
But the fact that I get to share it now with this amount of people globally, you know, like imagine releasing a shoe. So like imagine starting the way I started and not even thinking that, you know, I didn't know if I had a shot for this thing to be successful or not. And then it was locally.
And now we release a shoe and we have like lines outside of, you know, Korea, Japan, France, UK. Canada, New York, Miami, LA, Dallas, Chicago, like, and then multiple cities globally on the same day. And yes, other brands have had that too, but I'll never take that for granted.
It's like, it still surprises me every day, you know? So do you think like the strength of these brands is basically based on, you said DNA, I would say it's taste. I'd love to know like how you define taste.
Because everyone's talking about with AI that taste is the new moat. Are you basically just saying that the creative director and or the person that's filtering product through their stories and their ideas, ultimately that is what taste is? Taste and style are the two most important words, I think, in our world for what we do, right?
And my taste... has always been the same for what I like, but my style has evolved, right? So like, you know, as you get older, you tend to wear different things, you know, like, and it's funny because like, I remember growing up, like you see your parents and you see like, you know, your elders kind of like dressing, wearing, listening to music and kind of you're paying attention to their behavior and you're thinking like, that'll never be me.
I like what I like and I'll never evolve from this. This is my, you know, and then you find yourself, you know, listening to fucking Led Zeppelin, you know, with your dad in the car and enjoying it just as much as he does, you know, later on in life. So it's just, to me, I feel like the consistency, and I think that that's rare for there to be a brand where every product goes through one lens.
And then I think that the consistency is what makes it really easy to grow with. So like, I think that there's a red thread through a lot of what people see from the brand. And again, like to me, I'm just trying to build emotion.
That's my job, you know, is to transfer the emotion that I have for the product to the people who are buying the product. I think there's no better example. I've actually never heard that.
That's brilliant. The distinction between taste and style. we were talking off camera of like how I got in was through the Asics.
And then I got into like my grown man, Sabagos, and I matured into Clarks when I was in my fuckboy arrows, Del Toros. And now I'm getting dress shirts from you. So I think that's an interesting kind of distinction that it's just through your lens, but you're going to change, you know, just like at one point you're wearing, you know, the Mercers were joggers and now you're wearing baggy pants.
And that's like on the style side, not on the taste side. Yeah, exactly. Like taste is something, taste is unique to people.
But if your taste could be swayed, then you don't have a strong point of view. So if it could be swayed by things that you see every day on social or you're influenced easily, then your taste won't be consistent. So it's been easy for people to follow the brand for all of these years because the course has been additive.
It hasn't been new. Yeah. It's the same through line the whole entire time.
That's right. Exactly. And people can see that I work on product that I love.
And it's not for everybody. And it's not meant to be for everybody. But it's through the lens of what I love.
You know, so if one day we're working on a Kith Treats capsule, you know, that's the fun category from the brand. The subcategory of the brand that's supposed to be the most fun is through Kith Treats, right? So we have fun in that category.
It's meant to be young. It's meant to be fun, right? And I don't forget about that kid that I was when I first started the brand.
And even before then, I want to offer product to people who like the fun portion of the brand or the fun category of the brand. Do I wear Kith Treats t -shirts today? Less, less and less, I would say, right?
Maybe on the playground with your nieces and nephews. Yeah, exactly. Like in a fun setting, I would still wear it, but I don't, but that's not like, that's not my...
I've evolved with age, you know, but people that want to, you know, have that fun, you know, graphic program in their closet, you know, they have the ability to do that through the brand. And if we work on a Kith Treats capsule that releases once a month and it's fun and it's bright and it's graphic and it could be cereal infused, it could be something that we do with, you know, Junior's Cheesecake.
It could be whatever for Kith Treats. That's meant to be, you know, the F &B portion that's linked to a fun aspect. That's how we design.
We design backwards from it being fun and colorful, right? So if we're doing that and then the next week we're releasing a Giorgio Armani collection, I understand why people get confused. It's because nobody's ever done that in our world.
So there are people that understand the brand because they've grown up with the brand and they understand both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. And then there are people who don't follow the brand daily, who haven't made it a part of their lifestyle that see that one thing and then see the next thing and then they hate what they don't understand.
Those aren't your people anyway. You don't even give a fuck about those people anyway. I've never cared about anyone who hasn't put the time in to see and understand what it is that we've done over the years and who it is that we cater to.
It's like a lot of people would prefer me to alienate, you know, the left end of the spectrum and focus only on these more sophisticated, you know, products that I would wear mostly today, you know. But the truth is that's not what the brand is. The brand was always meant to be this welcoming space that welcomes anyone who knows the difference.
Knows the difference of what? Knows the difference between great and good. That's what the brand is.
The brand is created for people who know the difference, you know? And that difference doesn't only come in one form of style or another or one kind of product or another. That applies to everything that we do, whether it's a BMW car or a serial collaboration or a licensing deal with a film studio, you know?
And when we make Back to the Future product. Back to the Future is one of the most culturally relevant movies in our lifetime. But there are still, I believe, people who question why we would make product like that if we are able to do things that are so much more sophisticated and I guess elevated in the sense of price point and style.
And I think that I just explained why it's important for us to cover all. facets of the spectrum that we've built over the years because it started there so I'll never forget about that consumer ever and it's not a big it's not a big revenue driver for the brand a lot of people may think that the licensing deals for some of these smaller and more fun releases that we do are a big part of the revenue driver but it's not it's really small actually but I love film I love music I love sports that's what the brand is it's everything I love and if you grew up in Queens The way I did and took the F train from the last stop on 179th and Hillside, you know, to the city every morning and come back every night, you will see every fucking thing possible under the sun on that one -hour train ride.
You'll see all different styles, all different cultures, and that's what New York is. And we're a New York brand. So I'm never going to be one thing or the other.
I'll be everything that I am. That's all the brand can be. The genius part of this, anyone can say anything they want about you and your brand, but the last thing they can say is that you guys are ever stale.
What I think that you've done a great job of, and for people out there listening, it's a great way to think about your business, is just you have all of these kind of new vessels in conjunction with where you're at in your life. Like the kids division makes the most amount of sense when you're bringing... a kid into the world.
Like, dude, I remember when you did like that stroller collab. Yeah. And I was like, this motherfucker, his wife just wanted this boozy stroller and she fucked with the stroller, right?
Yo, that's exactly what happened. I knew it. You know what I mean?
It's exactly what happened in the conversation that we had with Bugaboo. It was at the time. There you go.
It was at the time when, you know, I had my first kid. So, you know, it's all relevant to things that I love, you know, and I guess there's only one release or project that we worked on. that didn't stem from my passion, which was the golf collection with TaylorMade.
You know, and that came from... Golfing either, bro. I don't know if you are.
I'm not. You know, I mean, to be honest, I wanted to golf, right? But I wasn't this, I wasn't, you know, I don't have the time to commit the way you have to, to be great at it.
So, you know, my VP of product, his name is Michael. He's been with me. He's almost been with me since day one.
I think he's been with me now 13 or 14 years. And he's huge into golf. He loves golf.
And Nick, my COO, loves golf. So we had a conversation and it was like, we almost didn't do it because I'm like, nah. And for years, I wouldn't even entertain the convo because I'm like, I don't fuck with golf.
But then I was like, you know what? These guys are part of the company culture. Like they are part of the cloth of this thing.
So like, you know, we went, we had the convo and actually I got into golf learning about the product. And I still ended up. designing the hard goods.
You know, even though I wasn't a golfer, my point of view came from the outside in, which was like, everybody's so used to being traditional with the sport. What if we did this, you know, and then boom, the all black set. And then what if we did this and boom, you had the multi, you know, it was the gradient metal pack for the, for the, you know, for the golf set.
So I believe it's one of the best, you know, hard good sets. that has ever existed in golf and I've done a lot of research when we went and we did that I did a lot of research so we had a crazy mood board of everything that existed and I wanted to do something very different so we were able to do that and you know now it's going to evolve from there but my point is I became interested in it and then I wouldn't have put my work or my ideas into it unless I felt like I was studied enough in it so like we did a lot of research and that's the thing is like If you feel comfortable applying your point of view and you think your lens can be impactful, then all of a sudden it becomes a new lane that you can then thrive in.
Because now people, they're waiting for the next thing we do with TaylorMade or the next thing we do with golf. We got people, and it was one of the most successful releases that we had in sports product. I think it's the most asymmetric difference in product in a category.
Like your product next to the next closest product in golf, I would argue is the biggest difference in any category. Maybe the Bugaboo actually. Maybe that was a little different.
And I'm sure that so much of your audience is a golfer and they were fiending for that. Yeah, and it's polarizing, you know, for a brand like us to take on golf when we did. You know, now it's a bit different.
But when we did it for the first time and when we started working on it for the first time, we worked on it a year, a year and a half before it released. I think it was very impactful in a way that people were excited that wouldn't typically get excited about golf products. So that actually worked.
You know, there's so many different areas that we could touch on for what the brand does where our point of view can create. emotion and can also bring a new consumer on board to love something that they wouldn't typically love you know and I think that that's seeing that happen multiple times over and over again even like for example like when I first worked on my ace on the first ASIC shoe in 07 seeing the people that were coming in and buying them I saw people look at the shoe for the first time like they didn't know what the shoe was but yet you know think about that that's 20 years ago you know 20 years later the amount of A6 that people probably had, amount of pairs that they had in their, you know, in the 20 -year span.
Bro, you opened up that inline big time for them. I was talking to Colin about that last night. Like, I bought inline A6 gel lights.
That was never, never an option for me until after the fact with you. I mean, and that's a great, you know, listen, it was a great first project and now A6 stands for a lot more than a gel light. Three, similar to what we did, you know, where we expanded, like our aperture really widened from there.
You know what I mean? Like, And with Asics, the same thing, what sports style then became after that, it was an evolution of, you know, having product that was relevant to the culture and how they were able to grow that.
That was a great, that was a great run. And still till today, you know, you're seeing retro product because the Asics Gel Eye 3 at one point was a performance led product. That was a performance product from the brand and then became lifestyle.
So similar to what you're seeing today, like a lot of these retro tech. You know, that's what we call it. It's like they seem like they're relevant for today because they were ahead of their time when they released.
And now they seem like they seem new. Everything's cyclical. But it's retro.
And that's exactly right. It's all cyclical. I think such a good thing to look at.
I talk to Colin about this and I've done that with my core brand is looking at these like kind of tertiary brands. It's a great way to get your start. Like Diodora is a great example.
Like Reebok was obviously distressed. ABG bought it. Now they're coming back.
That's an example. I think Asics was like your crowning jewel where it's like you're kind of just getting started and it's a perfect partnership where it makes sense for both of you guys. And I think for brands out there, you got to look at that.
Like Puma at one point had it. Now they're, obviously they're a little bit bigger now. I'd consider them kind of one of the big boys, but I think people out there need to start looking at what are those kind of secondary brands?
Yeah. Fila. That's another one.
Right. I mean, when you look at the, when you look at this book and you get to see the archive, but also like the progression in silhouette and design through the last 15 years, you know, and it's not only with Asics, there are, you know, multiple brands are on the spine of this book. Actually, you could see it's...
We're going to pop that up there, guys. Yeah, it's... It's incredible for me, like when we were building the second floor of our office, literally it was the second floor of the building, but it was also our second office that we built, right?
Before we started building, we had this rare opportunity to have this really big space and it's just a very long space that cuts an entire block, right? And we had a rare opportunity to lay out all of the product. So I decided to have the archivist, his name is Jordan.
I had him lay out all of our footwear from day one. And I've saved almost everything. Almost everything.
There were a few pairs that we had to go out and buy, but for the most part, all of the samples were saved. So unreleased samples that people have never seen. There's 1 ,200 unreleased samples in this book that people have never seen.
So I was able to look at, you know, chronologically in order. From 2011 to date, 15 years of product and the evolution when you walk the product. And that's why this exhibit that we have, we're going to have an exhibit for this book and it's all of the shoes and it's called Walk the Index because in the back of this book, there's the index to show all of these unreleased samples in the context of date.
You know, the context, the chronological order, I think is very important for this so people can see the progression. So when I walked it and I got to see all of my work, all of my, just the footwear, the work of footwear in one space, that really blew my mind because what blew my mind wasn't like, oh, this product is so beautiful, which it is, but that's not what blew my mind.
What blew my mind was how much product can evolve and still stay the same. So like some of these products were. the same silhouettes that I worked on 15 years later, but how much different the product looks today than it did then.
So, you know, we really, through the years, we've been through so much and think about all of the shit that's happened. Think about all the different presidents we've had since we started, all of the different artists that have come and gone, all the different brands that have come and gone. When I was looking through the 10 -year book, I was just thinking about where I was at in my life in conjunction with the product.
It's very wild to think. We were saying off camera, I think there's very, very few brands that it's year seven and they're thinking about what is my 10 -year book like? It's year 12, what is my 15 -year book like?
It's basically not, I don't know any other brands. Another brand is, I don't know if you know George from Represent. That's the only guy I know.
I think he did a decade book, but I don't know anybody else that's thinking the way that you're thinking like that. Yeah, I mean, it took a lot to get over the hump. You know, these brands have, when you start a brand, there's so much of that feeling that it could all go to shit in a day.
It could all go to zero. And I think COVID had everyone feeling that way. I felt like the brand was going to go away during COVID.
Really? No, at the height of COVID. You know, it's easy to forget what COVID, well, COVID was Armageddon.
You know, like I was like, oh, it's, we're never going to get over this shit. you know, people are going to stop caring about product the way that they do today. Like back then, I'm saying the way they cared about it before, I would say that's going to become less of a priority.
Like now it's about family and life and death. And I knew where I was emotionally. So I was like, this is going to, this is going to, this thing is going to topple over.
And not only for the Kith brand, but in general, I felt like the category of retail was going to be in trouble, like real trouble. And it is today, but not for the, not for those reasons. But I think that when you get to survive some of the scariest moments, it's like in life.
Sometimes you go through certain things like dramatic moments in your life where you think it's like the end all. Like there's no getting past certain moments where you can't see past it, you know? And it's no different for anyone who's starting a brand.
you'll go through challenges where you'll feel like you're not going to be able to make it through it, you know? And I've had many of those challenges. I don't think anybody out there listening would guess that you had that.
Outside of COVID, what's another moment in time where that you were scared that you weren't going to make payroll? You took too big of a bet. Was there any moment you can look back that you're like, we might not make it?
Yeah, it was in the very beginning. You know, in the very beginning, I had those challenges. And then...
You know, sometimes you make certain bets. I'll give you a good example. We had a store.
When we first started, we were in the atrium store. And we were on Broadway and Bleecker. I was on a 10 -year lease.
I was in year seven. I had three years left on my lease. And the traffic that we were getting, this is after Kith expanded into the atrium space.
So we had the whole corner. I used to get up. So I lived downtown at the time in the financial district.
And I used to get off the train, the 6 train. on Bleeker and look up and see this beautiful building on Lafayette. And at the time, and this is going to be hard for people to understand, above Houston on Lafayette, not below Houston, because I know what people are going to think when I say that.
Above Houston, there wasn't a fucking soul walking on that block where that building was. And I remember feeling like the traffic that we were getting on Broadway and Bleeker, 50 % of the traffic. was not the relevant traffic to the brand.
They were just walking in and it was like this traffic from Broadway that I didn't love. It was just like people who were walking in and out of the space that I felt stopped us from being able to focus on one customer at a time. So I wanted the space, I wanted the brand to be like more of a destination.
So walking out of, and this is a great story because I've never told this, but walking out of off the six train and seeing this building, That building, if you pull up pictures of 337, you know, Lafayette, it was like, I think that, you know, there were a couple of, there were eight different businesses being run in this building.
And some of them were like, I remember, you know, I think certain people got locked up because they were running like a sweatshop out of there, you know? And the facade of the building, it looked like the thing was going to fucking crumble. And I used to say, this is the perfect fucking space.
If I ever get this building. This is going to be where I place the brand. So seven years later, I get a call about the building, right?
And the opportunity was for us to get into that building and they would rebuild the space for me to sign a long, like a long lease on it, which would mean that I had to break the lease where I was, pay to break the lease, take, and we were successful, very successful in the space on Broadway and Bleeker. I would have to break that lease.
interrupt a successful business where I was getting a lot of traffic and then move to a space where there was no traffic, but it was bigger and it was its own space, meaning it was a standalone building for the brand. And I could envision what it would look like. And if you saw the building, you can never have the vision for what it can potentially look like.
But I was able to like see past it and really build up this dream of what the space can feel like, right? So we did that. And I took the space and I paid like some of the first like real money that I got to see, I paid to break a lease with that money.
So it was a huge risk and a huge gamble. And I remember finishing building the space and I felt, and I thought this was my, this was my thought process. Okay.
If we were getting 800 people a day in the old space on Broadway and bleaker, The idea was for me to have 300 people come a day. Higher conversion rate?
Yeah. No, not so much the conversion rate. It was about the service.
What kind of relationships do we want to have with the consumer coming in? I wanted to maintain the relationships we had when I was a small space in the back of Atrium. And it was one -on -one.
We were able to build relationships with the consumer. Then we expanded and we were getting the traffic coming in from Broadway, not Bleeker. And that changed.
It changed the dynamic. And I was like, okay, I want to get 300 people in the space a day. So in the middle of building the space, which took a year, longer maybe, because they literally took down all of the brick and rebuilt it and had to maintain the look of the building.
And through the process of rebuilding it, I started to get like really nervous around us being able to maintain the traffic I needed to even break even. And for context too, this is obviously you're reinvesting in the brand to start. This is finally you.
Maybe took some chips off the table and now you're re -putting those chips back in to take this big bold back. I never took the chips off the table. By the way, and this is something that people should know, I've never taken the chips off the table.
The only way we've gotten to be as big as we are is I've always put the chips back in. I've been fortunate enough where I made investments early on. Now, yeah, I make a paycheck, right?
But in terms of a profit share, all of the profit has gone back into the company. That's how we've been able to grow. That's a nice balance sheet.
I know that balance sheet looking nice. Yeah, so the capex yearly for us in building these stores and building offices and, you know, our expenses are, it's substantial, right? And I'm proud to say that we've been able to do it self -funded, right?
So pouring the money back into the business here, building this building, and then before opening the building, I was like, I was petrified that we wouldn't have the traffic. So here's an example of like, where I thought we wouldn't make it.
But the second month after we opened, I was already getting the same traffic we did on Broadway in a space that was supposed to get, literally, I wanted a third of the traffic. Now we're getting the same traffic. And then from there, we've surpassed the traffic that we were getting on Broadway.
And that was changing, literally changing human behavior for people to walk north of Houston on Lafayette. I was really worried about that. And honestly, that move in that specific location in that building is what helped the brand grow.
Without that location, without that global flagship, I don't think it is what it is today. I think so many people underestimate having the wrong person wear your stuff or being in the wrong look. It could do the complete opposite for you.
I remember, I forgot which brand, they actually paid Mike the Situation from Jersey Shore to wear the competitor's brand. So I feel like maybe you were getting just the wrong customer. Or not, you know, so you moved.
And it wasn't necessarily the wrong customer. And that's not the way we thought about it. It was the inability to build relationships with the customer.
But when you think about opening a location where it becomes destination on Lafayette, because there was no walking traffic there. Really, there was no walking traffic between Bleecker and Great Jones. You sound like Grutman with Miami.
He took a bet on some kind of adjacent neighborhood early. Yeah. And it paid off huge.
Yeah, I mean, look, this was still one block away from or two blocks away, you could say, with Crosby. Two blocks is a lot in New York. It is.
But the point of the story is, in saying this, is like the challenges that you need to overcome, typically, you know, in becoming a successful business, you're going to need to be uncomfortable and you're going to need to throw up a few times. And I did. And I've had sleepless nights, you know.
My wife can attest to this. She's been like my guardian angel. Also, without her, I don't think any of this is possible too because you need the support emotionally to get through a lot of this shit.
And I've been through a lot. And I've had this conversation with multiple people. One of my favorite people to speak to about shit that's going down and what I currently am thinking at the time is Marcus Troy.
He's one of my favorite people. Great artist. You know, he's been a friend since the very, very beginning and knows me before I started Kith.
And that's someone that will keep me honest and also give me his opinion that really matters. That's the blog OG. Yeah.
And be level -headed, you know. And I think that, you know, it's a conversation that I have. I've had multiple times with a few people recently on how the end result of what we do makes it look too easy.
or it's too sometimes it looks polished in a way and that's what we do like we're so interested in giving you the best content around product where the product looks we maximize the potential what it could look like and the problem with that sometimes it's not a problem it's just it's just the bystander of it that we make it look easy Because you don't see the struggle and the challenges it takes to get from ideation to completion.
And there's so many hands, you know, like when I'm in a design meeting today, you know, and the kind of people, the positions that are involved in bringing product from A to Z, it's massive. It's like, you know, thinking about... From design direction, which is me, to designer, to assistant designer, to production, to development, to merchandising, to, you know, from the production side you have then logistics.
It becomes layered, but it doesn't impact the creativity around the product. What it does is it impacts how complex it can be to ship product globally, to make product in time for a season globally. How many sample rounds will you see?
How many times do we get to fit the product? Like how many times will we get to change or will we get to change? Not how many times, but will we get to change the fabric once we see the fit?
So there's countless hours and energy and time being committed by so many people at the brand to deliver this product. But what people see is the finished product in... the content rollout, which we spend also a lot of time and energy on, where people forget that it takes this much work to get it done.
And it does take a lot of work. Like people will look at a hoodie or a t -shirt and think, okay, like they put a logo on a fucking hoodie. And no, man, like, no.
Like if you look at, I'll give you an example. If you look at the sun faded hoodie that we just released for the Yankees or we're releasing this week, but by the time this comes out, it would have released. The process that it took to get that right, there's six samples in the process of getting that fade to look right.
So it doesn't look blotchy. So the color is perfect. So the embroidered logo is perfect.
So the fit is perfect. It's like people assume that it's just like do this on that and get X in return. But it's way more complex than that, even with the more simple blocks and product that people take for granted yeah there's a massive team in each one of those kind of sub buckets not even about materials silhouettes not only about the team which is super important just the amount of steps and hours it takes to make a product and a garment and a and a sock or a tee like it's it's not a you know here's a block apply this fabric and this color and and call it a day Even when you apply, and this is, by the way, I'll give you a little 101.
Some of the biggest brands in the world, you'll go into that brand, whether it's a fashion house or a store in the mall, doesn't matter. From the lowest to the highest in terms of price point, you'll walk in and you'll try a shirt on and it won't fit you. And then you'll say, oh, it's not made for my body type.
That's why it doesn't fit. But no, that's not true. At some point, That body and that block, let's say the name of the style is Henry.
You're trying on a Henry button down. That's what it's called. At one point, that Henry block fit, but they changed the fabric.
And when they changed the fabric, they didn't refit it. So, you know, if you take a heavier fabric, all of a sudden that piece is going to lay different on you. And I'm telling you for a fact that a big percentage of the brands.
don't refit with different fabrics and they use the same block. It happens a lot. We don't skip those steps, you know, and I'm such a stickler for this shit.
And, you know, I've also been the fit model for so many years. I was going to mention that. That's fucking psycho.
I spend, you know, I've now, and this is within the last year, I've taken a step back from fitting every product. I still fit, but I don't fit every single men's product. But I would fit four hours a week, three to four hours a week.
It got to the point where like I was spending so much time on it that it was affecting everything else I was doing. So, but my point is for years, I'm talking about for 13 to 14 years of our 15 year existence, there was a consistent eye on the fit of every single SKU we put out. So when you walk in to a kit store, And you're trying on the product.
And obviously there are some products that are meant to fit slimmer and some that are meant to fit cropped. But every product that you see there has been fit for the fabric. And that is something that a lot of brands skip on.
Yeah, people don't, you know, if it's 50 -50 cotton poly versus 70 -30, it's a completely different drape on the body. Yeah, but also you'll apply like an Oxford to a shirt and then change it to wool and not refit it because you know that the block worked for you before. So a lot of these brands are taking shortcuts.
That's the thing is like, that's what I mean by, you know, so many people don't realize the amount of work that we put in and love and time and tender love and care into product is everything, man. A lot of passion in his eyes there. I saw it through the glasses.
They're tender love and care. Yeah. And by the way, I have a sensitivity to light, which is why I always wear sunglasses, which people fucking, you know, have a lot to say about that.
No issues, bro. Live your life, bro. No, thank you, man.
Stay comfy over there. That's what I'm saying. Fuck you.
Ronnie Feig, margin profile, top down or bottom up? Is it just build the best shit and then I need to hit this margin profile for the MSRP? No, it's a lot simpler than that.
Give people more than what they pay for. That's the motto. So like, for example, if we feel like we could sell a product for double what I could sell it for, I won't do it just because I could.
And this has a lot to do with – this is a merchandising exercise. And I have someone who's been with me for a long time. His name is Alex.
He's great at what he does. We sit down with every single item. I'm still doing the buy.
Like I'm sitting down for like at times it could be four hours, five hours a week where I'm buying the product, looking at the product, pricing the product. So during the buy, we go through the pricing. And we're deciding like what – the garment should cost based on the cost of the goods, you know?
But the goal always in every product that we make is to give the consumer more than what they pay for. Now, some consumers, they have a skewed perception as to what things should cost. And that has to do with what they're seeing from fast, you know, fast fashion or other retailers that are selling product for a lot less.
based on A, the quantity that they're buying and B, the fit and the quality of the fabrics. Like there's a lot that goes into it. So a t -shirt is not a t -shirt and a hoodie is not a hoodie.
And I give you the lowest form of product to understand what I'm saying. I mean, your tees are heavyweight. You know, they're not little crap, all style 1301s.
Like it's legit. And it's not only about the fabric weight. It's also about the construction of the product too and where the product is made.
You know, so. A lot of our products, a lot of our t -shirts come from Peru and a lot of our fabrics are very expensive. And I like the hand feel of these, of a lot of the t -shirts that we make because, you know, Peruvian cotton is amazing.
But also we don't only make t -shirts in Peru. For some of the t -shirts that we make in Asia, in China, the washes are very important too. And people have this misconception about China.
Like China makes amazing product. amazing product, you know, and China has the capabilities of making products that a lot of other countries don't have, you know, so this misconception around where the product is made, there are great factories in a lot of these countries that may, you know, be perceived as a less expensive make, but it's all about quality control, the fabrics that you're using, the construction, like there's a lot more that goes into it.
It's like people that talk about product, the end result of product, but not understanding what goes into it. You know, when I was younger at David Z and we were working on the Sabago product, I flew to DR where the product was made to learn.
And I spent three weeks in the factory going from one station to the next and literally spending the time with the factory employees to learn how to make the footwear. I spent three weeks. learning how to make it and then working on the line in each one of the lines, which we're doing, you know, they serve different purposes.
One is like stitching the upper. The other one is cementing the upper to the sole. The other line is literally hand sewing the mock stitch.
So I got to learn the process of making a shoe from A to Z. I can make a shoe from A to Z given the right machinery. Ronnie the cobbler.
Let's go. Yeah, but the problem is, like, I could speak to it because I know it. Yeah.
Right? The problem becomes when people speak to product and they don't know how the product is made. And today, you could learn about that.
Dude, it's so crazy. Like, people don't understand, like, a simple t -shirt. Yeah.
Like, you could give a silhouette that you, like, go in and, like, you know what they do? It's like the vanilla folder, that thing, and they outline it. Yeah.
Like, I've gone in and, like, built my own t -shirts. Yeah. It's not that hard to start to get kind of down the initial stuff.
It's a lot of fun. That's a great piece of advice for people out there to take is like, think about how much you learned in those three weeks in that factory. You know, there's a store in Japan, in Tokyo, that only sells white t -shirts.
And there's a thousand different bodies of a white t -shirt. That's that idea that that guy had. I'm a silhouette guy, bro.
Yes. Can you shout out the name of that store? I don't know the name.
Someone was telling me about it. And it's like my closet. Like when I go and I start shopping, reference shopping, and I go vintage shopping, and I also, I want to understand the market also for, and you have to, to know where you sit, the context of where you sit and what we do.
If you look at Andkin, which is our more elevated price point, more expensive fabrics, we have like, five different fits of t -shirts. I got to look into this.
I don't know about this. Yeah, so you could really like geek out and your favorite, you could go to the store and that's what I would recommend is going to the store and trying on all these different fits and they're different weights too. I'm wearing one of them today under this jacket and I obsess, I obsess over that and those are the things and people are going to watch and probably think to themselves, a t -shirt's a fucking t -shirt.
I'll go to fucking Uniqlo. You're talking to the wrong guy. I'm with you on that, man.
I'm searching right now for a good wide semi -crop right now. There you go. I can't really find it.
Liv, can you please send him the LXT? Yeah, we got to talk about that. Send him the white Pima cotton LXT.
Is that from Peru? The Pima Peru? Yeah, you're going to like that.
Nice. You're going to like that. We're going to pop them up and give them a shout.
Yeah, there you go. All I care about is the silhouette and just make sure the wash is good after the fact. Yeah.
Yeah, and that's why I travel to Japan a lot. Please give them game on Japan because I just went to Tokyo for the first time. Holy fuck.
What was I doing with my whole existence? I'm looking at buying a space there now, like buying an apartment there. That's a tough but rational negotiation with your wife.
By the way, that's exactly what it is. My wife, she loved it. She got sick.
Actually, we're going to go back soon. Yeah, just. there's a couple blocks there i don't know the names of the blocks sure we spent so much time in there yeah it is incredible it's it's my it's my happy place you know junia has gotten to show me you know junia is my best friend he's the director of the business out there in japan i know him for 17 18 years now and i've gotten you know i'm lucky enough to have a friend who really takes care of me when I go there and shows me things that I've never seen before and sets up my itinerary and you know I get to see it through his eyes which is I think so important when you go there is to have the right person to you know to show you around but it really it taught me it made me such a more purposeful collector and there's so many things that I collect that I don't talk about or show people because I do it for myself.
It was a couple.
You're not a golf guy. No, no, no, no. Are you a watch guy?
No, I am a watch guy. I'm obviously, and people have seen my collection, my car collection with the BMWs that I've gotten very obsessive over. But I also, I'm one of the biggest footwear collectors in the world.
And that started at a very young age, since 95. But I do it for me. You know, I'm still buying, on average, probably six to eight pairs of shoes on eBay a week.
And it's product from like the early 2000s. DS. What's the latest shoe that you bought that you're excited about?
I just bought a pair, two pairs of Croc Hiroshi HTMs, Air Force Ones. There's a white pair and a brown pair that I bought. I had multiple people looking for them.
So I actually might buy another set now. I already own a set. So I bought a second set.
And these are things that I just, I need to have because it represents a time that I think helped build a category or, you know, a culture. The time that helped literally build a culture. And I don't buy it for value and I don't buy it to ever think I'm going to sell it.
It's a weird thing because I don't buy it to wear them because a lot of these products you can't even wear anymore. It's a strange... It's a strange hobby that I have that I have to just...
You have like a museum set up though? Aesthetically, is it beautiful? No, I have...
No, it's a couple of storage units.
That's Ronnie's weakness. He's hoarding the shoes in the storage units. Yeah.
Those storage units will get you too. Yeah. You can mentally bump that price up.
Yes, they did. And then I had to temperature control it and all that. But like, honestly, it's what makes me who I am, I would say.
You know, and I'm really a product of that. environment back then. And I'm trying to carry that torch forward.
You know, I'm trying, I'm trying to do what I can. And I have a couple of projects lined up that I think will speak to that era more than anything in the past decade to really shine through because things have gotten a little muddy in the category. And by category, you mean footwear?
Yeah. I would say like for special footwear, I think a lot of people are buying products for the wrong reasons. And I want to bring substance back to product in a way where, you know, people start, and there are elements of that.
I can't speak to it now, but there are ways that we are, we're spending a lot of time thinking about how to create community of like -minded individuals to buy products for the right reasons and care about products for the right reasons. I just want people to get back to that mindset where they're buying it for themselves and not for anything else.
I want to round out the product side with just a very simple question on both the footwear side and then let's just call it the garment side. Let's just say there's a guy out there that wants to get your attention. He's doing $3 million a year.
Maybe it's footwear. Maybe it's apparel. He shows you the shoe.
What are the first three things you look at? What are you evaluating on the shoe side and the garment side? I know you're meticulous and psycho on the details.
I am. It depends on the brand. for what I look for, right?
Because I think different brands serve different purposes of the end result and the emotion that you're supposed to have towards product. How true to the DNA, like how true are they to the DNA of the brand? Like, did you try to make one brand appear as another brand?
Did you try to over like... Embed your DNA with their DNA? Yeah, or like, you know, overshadow.
Did you try to overshadow the DNA of what makes that brand special or what made you like that brand in the first place? Right. So some people over design and that becomes an issue where it might look familiar, but you're not getting enough of the brand in return.
And I think that with the amount of brands that I've been able to work with, my love for those brands need to be evident in the product that I build. right so like how much of it does it have to be kind of embedded in the product versus in the storytelling and content and go -to market around it I think it's both you know I think today and things have changed you know like times have changed but what I would say I think in today's world 50 % of the reason people buy anything is the product and then the other 50 % is is the storytelling and the content around the product you know I walked into a store I would say I buy product 100 % of the time for 100 % of the product.
Anything else is complimentary and is a cherry on top. But I walked into a store. I just came back from Portland last week and I walked into a store called Maccas, which is a great store out there.
It's been there a long time. Yeah, it's been there. It's been there a long time and they're great.
I thought that their shop was a breath of fresh air for me because I didn't know 80 % of the brands that were in there. And I still spent a lot of money and bought a lot of product for myself because I'm still that guy. Like I don't need to know the brand.
I need the product to be incredible. So I tried on a bunch of stuff and I loved a bunch of stuff. And it's still this many years later, I still get that excited, you know, about product that I'm seeing for the first time, which was refreshing.
Is that what it's all about? Is that like if you, again. I was mind blown.
Guys, we're going to get into the collaborations and the licenses shortly. When I was talking to Austin, I thought you had this like crazy system in place and how you kind of go to market. And he said a lot of it is kind of feel.
And kind of what we talked about earlier. Who said that? Austin said a lot of it was feel.
My Austin? Yeah, based on your taste and your judgment, which you obviously talked about earlier in the conversation. So I guess what is your goal when someone buys a product from you?
If you had to kind of whittle it down to, is it a feeling? Is it an emotion? Someone buys a product from you.
They open the box. What is a perfect situation for you? Well, it's meant to do a few different things.
The first thing it's meant to do is be special. Meaning like everything that we do, I want to do in a limited number so that when that person that buys the product either goes to work or goes to school, the person next to them most likely is not wearing that same product, right? So that's one thing is scarcity will always be a form of luxury.
And I think that a lot of these luxury brands. Regardless of MSRP too. Scarcity is scarcity.
Nothing to do with price. Part of luxury is knowing that you're one of few people that have a product. That's part of luxury.
Scarcity has always been that. I mean, look at watches and cars. This is not new.
What I'm saying isn't new. But I think that a lot of these luxury brands have gotten carried away and opened too many spaces in too many cities where they've lost the scarcity model, where a lot of the people that were coming to some of these fashion house stores were feeling, they felt really special walking in because it wasn't everywhere.
So I think a portion of why people were buying into those products and feeling special was the scarcity model within these luxury brands. So I think there's a new form of luxury. now, where it's not based on the price point.
It's based on the emotion. And that emotion isn't one emotion. It's multiple.
So first is the purpose of walking into the space. Then it's the product that you're gravitating towards. Then it's buying the product and what you feel afterwards, right?
If you can get great use out of the product, you know what a lot of people tell me, a lot of the fans of the brands are like, when I wear a Kith product, so many people ask me about the product. And these are the products, a lot of these products are the ones that are not branded or have small branding where they're being asked about the product for the look and feel of the product.
That's the warmest compliment for you. Yeah, and I love that. And by the way, it happens, and I'm now in the stage of my life where I'm not wearing a lot of logo -driven product.
So, you know, the Andkin portion of the line is where I am currently in my life. where the product and kin is not branded. It's all unbranded.
So my point in saying that is you need to feel like the product is different in more ways than one. You don't have anything in your closet that looks and feels like it. It's worth to you more than the money that you spent.
So that was the idea that I mentioned before is like you want to make product that goes above and beyond for value. Value is a word that's been destroyed. by down market retailers, but value is so important, right?
It's like getting more than what you pay for is like, I feel like a lost mindset when really it's like, you'll figure it out. Some people figure it out later. Like you got like 30 wares out of a piece and then you're like, oh shit.
And you're like, wow, this cost me like a dollar per wear. Oh shit. It's like, you know, that, that was actually like, that was more than worth what I paid for it.
And you'll figure it out later, right? But I'm trying to give people that mindset before they purchase the product. I want people to think about that before they purchase something.
You know, and not only my product. I want to get people in that mindset for anything they buy. Getting more than what you pay for is huge.
Like, even for me, as a consumer of product today, that's what I look for, no matter what I'm buying. I want to know. that I'm going to get more than what I pay for the product.
Like I'm going to get more than the money that I pay for it. You're going to feel that and probably know in the back of your head what the cogs are. And you're going to be like, did these motherfuckers jack me up?
Yeah. Like 200 % mark I'm on this shit. But you know what?
It, you know, it depends on your value to that product. For example, like the products that I'm buying on eBay right now from the early 2000s. Oh, those are, that's different.
Oh my, oh my God. It's like, you know, I can't think about what it costs to make that product. So for some people, that's the scarcity.
Exactly. Exactly. So for some people, it depends on what it's worth to them, how much they're going to wear it, what they're going to wear it with, what it's going to make them feel.
And I try to be connected to that. I try to be as connected as possible to that, to make people feel great about what they're purchasing. And by the way, if you don't want to purchase it, that's okay.
It's like the space is there. Ronnie's is there. Siddell's is there.
Treats is there. You don't have to buy an item. You could spend $7.
$9 on an ice cream or 20 bucks on a sandwich at Ronnie's and feel like you're also part of the world. I don't need people to feel like they need to buy anything. It's lethal that you have so many vehicles.
And guys, this is called consumer surplus. It's an economic term. We talk about it a lot in the Peter Rahal episode from David Protein.
I completely agree. He's obviously looking at it on the protein bar side. I think something also, which makes this, again, giving you kind of more leverage and ability to think how you think.
You know, you talked about OPEX before is you don't spend on fucking marketing. So your margin profile can be significantly lower and you're good. We don't spend, hold on, hold on.
No, no, you don't spend on like meta. We don't spend on paid marketing. Let's just talk about that right now.
Yeah. Why? Because we don't have to.
Because we don't have to. You know, like. You could double up.
That top line revenue could double up with just a little bit of meta, bro. You know what? Maybe.
But I'm not interested in doubling up. I'm interested in people organically connecting to the brand, creating their own emotion to the brand and not having an emotion created for them. When you're pitched your algorithm with paid ads, and I'm not saying it's never going to happen.
When there is a form that I feel is authentic and organic, then I will... I'll, you know, I'll do some research on it and I'll see if I feel like it's right for me. But at the time, right, you know, at this time, at this current moment, I think that people are curious enough as to what we're doing that they want to know what we're doing.
The minute the curiosity goes away, we're going to be in a shitload of trouble, you know, and a lot of brands are lacking that curiosity from the consumer. You could argue that that's kind of the first step towards the grave. It's like when you go into wholesale.
Like, when you're in Bloomy's or Nordstrom's and you go down to Zoomy's or PacSun, you're fucked. When you're in Zoomy's or PacSun, you go to Walmart and Target, you're fucked. Yeah.
Then you go into Off -Price, you're fucked. Well, you know, listen. You have so many levers to pull that you have not pulled any of these levers.
So, you know, I wouldn't label it as fucked because some... You're closer to an ABG leverage buyout, 100%. No, no, listen, listen.
I hear what you're saying. Yeah. Every brand serves a purpose.
You know, every founder or buyer of a brand, even if it's not the original founder that's running the company, they all will have their own path as to what they're trying to achieve. Some are more business -oriented and have to hit a number, and some are doing it for the right reasons, which I consider to be passion, you know, around creation of product.
I'm really passionate about what I do. I love what I do. So my purpose is different from it needing to be about dollars and cents.
And this is what people need to also understand listening to this. If I wanted to spend a fourth of what I spend on my doors, on my stores, I can. And the product will continue to sell, I believe, at the same rate.
We're spending more than some luxury houses on our spaces.
That's between $1 ,000 to like $1 ,300 a foot on the space that we built. And this is not from the ground up. This is when you're given a vanilla box, we call it, right?
That decision has puzzled my CFO, right? And continues to do that, but is so embedded in what I try to do. I'm trying to give people a space where they could come in and be inspired.
And I'm trying to build a space around great product where it's complementary to the product I'm trying to build. I'm also trying to give myself room to grow into an aesthetic with product that I build. So I'm trying for like the spaces to have no ceiling in terms of aesthetic and feel so that the product can continue to evolve without feeling like it's out of place.
I do feel like over the years, it's gotten more minimalist in nature. Yeah. Keeping it more open to...
Yeah. To adjust. It is, but it's always going to be beautiful.
And that's the key, right? Like the key for me is to build spaces where people come in and it feels like you're walking into a special space. You know, it took, you know what, it took me a while.
It took me a while to get used to walking into my Soho space after I rebuilt it, you know, and, you know, people, I just posted something for the 15 year retrospect on photos throughout the years. This is like the latest post I put up with the carousel. And I see people's like reaction to that.
They're so emotionally invested into the spaces throughout the years. It's incredible. Because they grew up with the spaces, right?
I think about the wood. I think about the Air Force Ones hanging. I think about the white crystal.
I think about all that. Yeah, yeah. And that has evolved, you know.
That's no longer part of our aesthetic. But it's embedded in your mind because you associated your experience in the shop, you know. with the product that you purchased it's like it goes hand in hand and even if i cannot say that about many brands to be completely frank with you yeah yeah yeah and i think that that's that's a that's a big part of it but as we expand regionally that core purpose stays intact of what the spaces need to achieve you gotta also tell your cfo i mean obviously you guys are spending on your website but your stores are basically like your website yeah it's like you're investing in your website which there's a big budget for that so i understand what you're doing there yeah you see but you're trying to You're trying to create a formula for the reasoning.
Formulaic in nature. I know, for the reasoning behind some of these decisions that I'm making, where for me, it has nothing to do with the formula. You know, it has nothing to do with that.
It has to do with what is the greatest space that we can build today? How far can we take this thing? People often will try to put you in a box to say, this is what you should be.
Because that's what they've seen in the past. So you do anything beyond the four walls they try to box you in, box you into, if you do anything beyond that, it's confusing to them because they don't understand the purpose until they experience it. So it's very interesting to understand what dictates the journey and the path.
The journey needs to be dictated by purpose. by being purposeful and thoughtful, you know? And that is ultimately how I want to think about the future is every move and decision that I make needs to, like you said before, I'm in the 15 -year mindset today because we have a book coming out in September, but I really am on the 18 to 20 -year mindset.
Like, I need to think about what we grow into, you know? And you're thinking about that now and especially the day after this comes out. It's on to...
And it's not a formula. It is a feeling. And Austin, you know...
he's been around me for so many years he understands when it's time to pivot and change direction it's because the brand is forcing us to do so not because we're thinking like I'm thinking I'm not thinking for myself I'm thinking for the brand at this point the brand has a brain because it's been consistent for 15 years I am and when you when you are a creative director it's one thing but when you've also when you're the founder slash creative director I am now thinking for the brand.
I need to do the brand justice with the decisions that I make. You know, so it's not formulaic. It's building blocks.
It's like when I try to push everything forward, you know, we need to be militant in decision -making to make sure that the brand is, we're maximizing the potential, but by doing it tastefully. And is doing that, those Monday programs, those weekly drops, does that kind of force you? To always have that exercise and thinking through how do we avoid that complacency?
The Monday program, I don't know how many years it's been now. It has to have been now like at least eight years of releasing product. Insane.
You know, 52 times a year. And the purpose of a Monday program sometimes is the appetizer, which I like. And it's continuously, the purpose of that has continuously changed because that's what Monday program was built for.
It was a malleable idea of like, hey, like we have this Yankee collection dropping the end of the week. On the Monday, let's give them the accessory portion or the lifestyle portion of that, right? And get them ready for, and it stands for then part of the rollout, but also part of.
you know, the release strategy. That's the one layer of predictability is that, is at least that your audience can expect that every Monday they could wake up and something new and fresh from Kith could come. Yeah, and I think that that's important.
And sometimes it could be two hats and sometimes it could be one t -shirt and sometimes it could be an entire collection of product. So we look at the calendar and study the calendar very carefully to think about bandwidth and think about the journey that people are taking throughout the year and following us with the amount of content that we're throwing at them.
But ultimately, like, I want to do everything I can, not everything I should. So it's like I have to then position myself and the brand to be able to do that in a way where people can digest it in the best way possible.
So it's a Rubik's Cube, you know, and the calendar is really a Rubik's Cube because product is always shipped late from brands. Things have to move around. I have to sometimes.
Sell product before I receive it in my warehouse knowing that I'm getting it next week I'll sell it and then it'll take 14 days to ship it out or get to a consumer and And we have to sometimes stay on calendar because one thing can affect it's a domino effect, you know It could affect the rest of the year if I change things around so we try to be methodical like on a week -to -week basis of what's gonna happen for a full year like I'm on next year's calendar and next year's Planned out by the week right so It then puts the content team in place to be making great decisions, to be creative and have enough time to do what they need to do.
And then it has like the editing team on a schedule and on a calendar to be able to put this stuff up on the site. It has my experiential team in place to be able to throw these amazing events. Like we have an event coming up very soon.
Like by the time this comes out, it'll be like within the next two weeks. Drop it. Drop it.
I can't. I can't. But people aren't ready.
And people think I'm one thing or 10 things, but this will add to whatever they think. And that's what I mean by having so many different touch points to be able to bring something to fruition. It's like maybe 80 people touch it internally.
A lot of vessels you have. I mean, it's cars, hospitality, kids clothes, high end. We haven't talked about Ivy, which is great.
The way Ronnie has built Kith is the blueprint for how you build an influential brand today. We put together a free PDF on Ronnie's playbook, why he hates paid marketing, why storytelling is king, and the reason he spends more in his stores than most luxury brands do today. Link down below in the description.
Enjoy the rest of the episode. I want to double click on the collabs just because I think. among other things, like you're very well known.
People have always tried to kind of duplicate your playbook there. Why don't you just put us on some game? You could pick any collab and just kind of walk us through what is that process?
I know we talked about your individual taste, but is it also in conjunction? Maybe it's, you know, Hasbro has its 50th anniversary coming. Like what is the holistic view on how Ronnie's brain thinks?
I'll walk you through one example, which is BMW that just happened in Pebble Beach. So when we first started with BMW, the idea was when I sat down with Toby, who flew in from Germany from BMW and asked me, why do you love the brand? And I'm like, it was a poster on my wall.
You know, like my grandfather had an M3, an E30, and I fell in love with it. And it then became this aspirational item that I had to have, you know, the car.
I had, and then, you know, funny enough, later in life, I was able to get a 330. You know, this is when I worked for David. The later years working for David, I was able to lease a 330, but build it, you know, as a white with a red interior.
And I love the car, obviously. But the idea was, hey, like, I love the E30 M3. Can we do something with the E30 M3?
He's like, well, you know, we have an M4 coming soon. And in the lineage of what the M3 meant, it obviously is the future body style of the M3 because the M3, the two -door became the M4 and then the M3 became the four -door. So the idea was this past and present story.
And I give you that example because I always try to think in those terms of the educational part of the project, which is teaching people. why the e30 m3 was so important we know it's a cultural icon but to you as well too the personal story obviously i think brings it to a whole other level and and that's that's a portion of it but that's a smaller portion of it the the the cultural relevance of the e30 m3 where did it come from well the e30 m3 you know won a bunch of races and was such an important such an important car in the portfolio like what it meant to put a race car on the street and make it a street car, right?
And then what it did for the brand and what it did for M. So when I went to Germany and I got to see, you know, the history of BMW and the lineage of the specific car, the 3 Series, I knew that that story had to be told. So Johnny Chikoto, which was the race car driver that used to drive the E30 M3 and won a bunch of trophies with it, I put him on the racetrack with his son.
And I had them both drive the E30 M3 and the M4 on the same track. And it was to tell this like past and present story. So the apparel and the lifestyle product that we then sell is an extension of people who either can't afford to buy the car or want to buy the car plus that.
But it's letting people into the culture of what BMW stands for.
I'm heavily invested into the brand because I learned so much about it. If anyone was in my shoes in Germany and got to see what I see, they'd be the biggest fans of the brand too, right? So it's my responsibility.
I feel like it's my responsibility doing what I do to transfer over the knowledge and the feeling that I have when I do certain things. So my goal is to be able to transfer that. why, why do I care so much about that?
I don't fucking know. Like, I don't know why I want to transfer that emotion, but I've always, since a kid wanted to put, you know, like when you're, when, when, when we were younger and we'd hear like, we'd buy a mixtape, we'd hear a song, like we'd buy a clue tape and I'd hear like a Foxy Brown freestyle that I loved over a Jamaican beat.
And for some reason I had to like, make everyone listen to that song. Like, oh, you got to hear this shit.
This shit's crazy. And like, why do we want to put people on to those things? Well, whether it's a track on a mixtape or now on a larger stage where I could like teach people about the history of a BMW automobile.
It's like, to me, it's the same kind of transfer of emotion. So I want to, I want as many people as possible to explore those feelings. And to know what I know.
So that now is a big part of the purpose of what I do. I'm also 44 and like at this point or this stage of my career, like this is a legacy mode of like what I could do to transfer emotion. You know, and I do think that Kith spaces and for people that are spending their weekends or time coming to the Kith store, like I do think that I'm helping people, making people happy.
If you see people eating Kith Treats, every single person will smile after a bite. And that was the goal with Kith Treats, right? Standing outside of Brooklyn with the first window, like the first window, I was just like, the store, it was for the opening of the Brooklyn store, but I was outside just curious about what people's reaction would be to tasting this cereal infused ice cream, which was like the invention of that.
That didn't exist before I did what I did. So like. Watching people's reaction and seeing them smile, it made my, I didn't care what happened inside the space I spent so much time building.
That was like such an important moment for me. That is the KPI, is the feeling. That's right.
Yeah. Wow. It's the feeling.
That's a bar. Save that one. I mean, that's what it is.
That's great. That's exactly what it is. So you've done so many of these collabs.
And again, kind of going back to what you said earlier is we just see the end product. Yeah. No one knows.
I mean. I've done tons of licensing deals as well, too. I'd love for you to just share the red flags, the green flags.
What do you look for? Again, putting aside the, this is the taste of Ronnie Feig, but then everything else. Yeah, I mean, there's so...
And you'll see the final edit of this. Don't worry about it. You'll see the final edit of this.
No, no, no. That's okay. Listen, I don't want you to cut anything out.
Sometimes I have this feeling in the middle of meetings where I'll stop. And I'll be like, fuck, I wish everyone was here for this shit. You know, like I'll be in a meeting with a brand that first said no to something.
And then, you know, I'll sit down and I'll give you a good example of this. Are they still saying no? Anybody?
I mean, when I say that, I don't mean they're saying no to working together. No to a concept within the concept. No to an idea that makes them uncomfortable.
That happens a lot. You should tell them the Kith Treats ice cream was probably a bad idea to outsiders. And I'll tell you how Kith Treats came about after this.
It's pretty funny. But like how that came to be because originally it was supposed to be a white chocolate bread window. And I'll give you the story around that.
So the reason why I say that is because it's important for people to know that Some of the product and concepts behind product took three, four rounds of like having to convince a brand to allow me to do certain things, you know, like putting our logo in the BMW Rondell. That was an automatic no.
And then no, no, no. Because they've never done that before. Three more times after that.
Yeah, no, no. And that's, you know, IP integration is a big part of the conversation for me. It's like, how do we do something that's going to differentiate what you've already done?
How are we going to, because a big part of the Kith DNA is to disrupt. It's just become a big part of what we do, you know? So people have to see creativity, but also it needs to move the needle, right?
And I think that when we met with Coca -Cola and we wanted to have Kith in the Coke font on a glass contour bottle, that was a fuck no. Right. In so many words, it was a no, like, of course not.
You can't do that. But then through conversation and through understanding the purpose of what I'm trying to do, brands will align because they understand the mutual benefit of a brand like ours and myself uplifting the DNA of the brand itself.
you know, Coca -Cola is such a great brand. It's a great American brand. So I have this like Coca -Cola book that I bought in Japan.
And going back to Japan, they're so good at up -specking what you would think is a dollar can of Coke into a lifestyle. Like the way that the Japanese consumer looks at American brands in Japan is very different from here. They're able to build products around storytelling in ways that Americans couldn't even do it for themselves so I saw that like if you go to Japan if you went to Japan 15 years ago and you bought a champion sweatshirt it's like the Japanese champion sweatshirts were like so much better and better made better fit just like those some of those retailers were taking product and spinning it and recreating it in a way that really made you respect the brand so much more.
That's what I wanted to do for Coke. So the bottle was one conversation, but what I was going to do within the context of the collection is like, I want to make product for Coca -Cola that people have never seen. People have never felt.
Are you communicating to them how you're communicating to me right now? Yeah, of course. You're saying these exact things.
Of course. I mean, I am, and I'm in every conversation that. then builds the blueprint for what we do in the future and that's why it's such long -standing relationships that we have is because they need to hear the intent from me because I'm creatively directing where we go it's like they need to understand what my end goal is in working together so in collaborations like being purposeful and trying to achieve something that hasn't been achieved in the past will be again a building block for that brand So if I can, there was a time, and I truly believe this, and right now it'll be hard for people to understand what I'm saying because we're not in a time today when we released the kind of product we did for a brand like Coca -Cola.
But there was a time where if you asked my consumer, what is the first thing you think about when I say Coca -Cola? They may not say a can or a bottle. in my at my deli or at a restaurant they may say a different product and can you imagine that can you imagine i ask you what's the first thing you think about when you think about coca -cola and you say the collaborative product and you say the rugby that i bought what that does for a brand is is priceless because then you expand the purpose of what you stand for it's like and coca -cola is not just a beverage to me there's so much equity in that ip where it could stand for so much more.
The color, the feel. If you get this book of the history of Coca -Cola and you see like in the 70s what Coca -Cola meant to the US, like if you have like an ice cold Coke with a fucking burger or a slice of pizza, you know what that does. We just hit that.
We just hit that. I felt good. I've done it like a year.
You know what that does. So like, you know, so transferring that over to what that would mean on product outside of a beverage is... To me, the most fun I can have is like then transferring it over to – like BMW is the same thing.
If I ask you what's the first thing you think about BMW, like if you just bought that orange leather jacket and you don't own a BMW car, that may be the first thing you think about. This goes back to all those kind of ways to get them into the world. It's a net new – Yeah, but getting someone into the Coca -Cola world isn't – I don't need to do that.
You might have gotten them back into it to be completely frank. Maybe, but that's not even the purpose. The purpose is to expand how they feel about it.
That was the purpose in the conversation that I had. It's like, hey, I really think of Coca -Cola as a lifestyle brand. I don't think about it as a beverage.
And that was the spark. That was like, hey, the bottle is just part of the overall story. It's the context.
It has to be the base of the story because that's why people have fallen in love with the brand. But I'm then going to give you a world around it. And that's an example.
I know you asked me about collaboration. I just wanted to give you one example around how we work and what we think about when we work with a partner. It's like I'm trying to tell the history of why I feel connected to the brand.
That is the purpose of why we do what we do. What about these like trips that you're doing with a select group of people that you like known from childhood? Is that a big part of this?
Because for me, that has always just, and it's subtle. it just further cements the story that you're talking about. And it's just a net new vehicle that you see the story through that lens.
I think that has been one of the most powerful things that you've done. Is that in those conversations? Do they want that?
Do you ask for that? Two things about that. Number one, I am, and if you ask my friends, like any of my friends, they'll tell you that I'm like the glue or not even the glue, but I'm the connector.
So like all of my friends know each other through me. And then the relationships that have been built in silos, like have been because they met on some of these trips or because I've put them together. And I've been fortunate enough to be part of so many friendships, but more fortunate enough to create other friendships.
And I love being that person that... is able to connect like -minded individuals that can become even better friends than I am with that individual. So Kif has been a platform for me where I can bring all my friends together and enjoy my life and friendships because I don't get to do that outside of work because I don't have time.
So the brand has been a platform where I could do that. By chance. That is the meetup with the friends.
It's like everyone's so busy. That is the meetup. That's exactly right.
And all of us are busy. And ironically, by coincidence, all of us have become successful in our own right, like with doing what we do, you know? So like if you go back in the history of some of our first trips, like the amount of growth that all of us have had.
Individually and collectively. And if I go down the list, one individual after the other. This is from day one.
There haven't been new names on that list for a long time, you know? So they become influential. So seeing like for imagine like what we do when we take over a mountain in Hokkaido and we're 25 individuals and all of us are wearing the same ski kit and we take over the village.
Like we're like walking around like. skiing down the mountain all wearing the same kit the influence that that has on people that are there is it's insane you know and then the organic content nobody is told that they have to post anything there's no hashtag that shit's corny there's none there's none of that you know like it's organic social that comes out of that because people love people first of all if I take you to the spaces you're gonna love it if I take you to Amangiri for and we take over the whole hotel And I put you in the product and we're hiking.
You know, you're going to post that because that's what human behavior is now. You love doing what you're doing and you think some shit's cool. You're going to post it because that's what life is today.
So like that came organically. No one, I haven't asked anybody to post anything ever. Like literally ever.
That backed into a good situation. That makes a lot of sense. It's just, you know, one time a quarter, two times a year, you could just.
Put a date on the calendar and everyone can link up. And that's exactly what we're doing. And this one thing I'm speaking about that's happening very soon will be the fucking pinnacle of that.
We had to show up for the 15 years. So that's going to be the biggest, the biggest, I think it's going to be the biggest moment. It's definitely the biggest moment in my career.
Yeah. So I think it's going to be a big moment in fashion. You know, I'm really, I'm really hyped about that because it takes, it took so much to be able to get to the point where we can impact the culture in that way.
So I'm just, I'm excited for the position that we're in also to be able to do things the way that we're doing them is, it's not taken for granted. Like, I'm very appreciative of the fact that I'm able to do that, you know, and the team that I have and everybody around me that's like supporting me and able to bring it to fruition is key.
When can we look out for that? It's the first week, first and second week of October. A collaboration you're proudest of?
Giorgio Armani. Why? Because Giorgio was always the pinnacle for me.
Just the top of the pyramid for what he was able to build, the lifestyle and what he stood for. dressing some of the most important characters in some of the most amazing films, being able to build a book for him when I met with him and having that conversation with him and then working on a few other projects with him before he passed.
To me, that's the ultimate. That was, I think, I think it's the most impactful and most important project of my career. I would say from the outside looking into it probably was the biggest jump in maturation from like an aesthetic perspective as well too as far as the the garment and product like I never looked at you under that lens yeah that was for me that was like when I crossed the chasm to like I would buy stuff from him in that in that vehicle yeah and and you're not you know you're not the first person to say that and I know that too I know that that was the beginning of something new yeah for again I think Bergdorf was another one too when you went in there I was like okay He's going into a whole other universe right now.
Yeah, and that's the thing. I want to be able to work on the most aspirational shit to me personally and live through that with the brand. And I think, again, it's going to confuse certain people, but that's what it's meant to do.
But it's going to really affect. like a different group of people that get into that crepe suit the artist suit that I wear so often I wear it like I wear any kit like such a comfortable suit a double -breasted shawl like it's perfect I've never gone I've never gone that route I might need to hit that yeah I mean listen it's and it made me and again like it's the same thing like when there was mutual interest.
And by the way, there was mutual interest and a conversation that started three or four years before we put out that product. And it took that long for me to then meet with, you know, Mr. A.
And it took a ton of education for me to think about what I was going to do, you know, and create the archetype of every guy that I thought Giorgio affected in that brand's and his lifespan. For people that got into suits and the type of guy that got into suits throughout the years, I wanted to celebrate that. I wanted to celebrate that for him and with him.
Right. So in that conversation that I had with him, like that was a very interesting. And by the way, like not just because there's interest in working together, it doesn't mean that we're going to sit down and talk and he's going to like the idea or agree with the idea.
And at first. He didn't really agree and love it until I went through the book and explained the purpose that it served and what I was trying to do by paying respects, you know, like paying respect to Giorgio through his history and his, you know, because he turned 90 and the brand, I think, turned, I don't remember the year.
You're going to have to check that. I think it was 50. And I think that people seeing it, I think for the first time, seeing the history and understanding what it was through my lens allowed people to then dive deeper.
And I think that that's the purpose that it served. I don't think there was an awareness in my cohort, in my pocket. I didn't know much about Giorgio.
I obviously know the logo. Yeah, of course. But I didn't know much past that.
I was thinking cologne. Right. Yeah.
And the finest, I believe Giorgio Armani is the finest garments in the world, literally. And that's the purpose of why I wanted to work together. Love that.
Guys, we're going to finish up with some of those last collaborations. I just want to round it out with some of this outside stuff, outside of the core business. Outside of marrying your wife and having your kid.
Was there a fucking better moment? Two girls. Was there a better moment than the Knicks winning the 2026 championship?
I wouldn't say that one is better than the other.
Honestly, everything that will happen after that moment is just a cherry on top. Everything that will happen. So you're good for life with the one chip.
I'm good for life with the one chip. I'm good for life with the one chip. So you're the creative director.
Let's talk about that. What does that role actually look like? And I think that you were the beginning of this kind of evolution, Ruiji, Arsham, where they're getting kind of these outside creatives to adjust the visual identity and more.
It's a beautiful thing. You know, like getting people who are emotionally invested and who have a point of view. We've worked now, like, you know, I think this year will mark the eighth collection.
So I've been working with the Knicks since way before they got good, let alone great, right? And to me, it's like New York City, what the Knicks represent for the city is everything that I feel. the city is about and everything the city feels like to me is like represented by the Knicks, you know, and growing up, you know, with the nineties team.
Mason, Starks, Gritty. Mason, Starks, Ewing, Oakley. I mean, it was that time.
Again, like everything you love when you're a kid, you're going to love for the rest of your life. I will love the Knicks for the rest of my life. Like no matter what, you know, unconditional love.
And we love them through their. I'm really happy that they're in a position that they're in now where they're getting the respect that they deserve. But more importantly, Jalen Brunson is the best Knick of all time, in my opinion.
And we have such an incredible leader on that team. But also the personalities of the other players that I got to know, Kat and Hart, like, and Deuce and Alvarado. Like, yo, these guys are great guys, man.
Alvarado is the Knicks. Literally. I think...
I think some people would think that's outlandish. I saw it. You agree?
Yeah. He's like just that gritty. Dude.
He's so us. He's like from the city. Like he represents, it puts the heart on his, like he's very New York.
And I love that about the Knicks. Like I love that grittiness and that hustle from these players. But more importantly, like I know these guys off the court and they're great guys.
Like I just spent a good amount of time with Josh Hart out east. I've hung with him a bunch. He's such a good...
Matt, great dude. Matt Hillman. Yo, great people, man.
And that to me is more important than anything else. And also, you know, I think Jim Dolan is a great owner. I do.
We don't clip that one. I think he's a great owner. Why?
Because he made the right decisions of putting the best in charge. You know, he made the right decisions for the team. You know, like...
Also, like... I feel like he loves this team so much, man. And I know because I'm there.
He's there at the games, like, invested in it. You know, he's not just a typical, you know, some of these team owners, they don't even watch the games the way that they should be, like, with the interest of the win, like, in the way that I see him. So it hurt when they were losing.
It hurt him. It definitely hurt him. Definitely hurt him.
You don't see that. You just saw trash for so long. And obviously West and the new, like all of that coming in.
I know, but dude, it's like, dude, it's when you, this is New York City, man. Like the amount of publicity, you know, good or bad that you're going to get in that position. It's, nobody can fucking deal with that.
You know, like we won't, I'm not going to get into any specifics, but I will say this. I think the organization is a winning organization. It's, it stands for.
you know, the best of New York City, and they have the people in charge right now between Wes and Leon that I think is the best league -wide. I think they're the best tandem league -wide. There's no one better.
And what we put together to win a chip, do you know how crazy that was for, like, us to be in that position after a few, just a few years before that? The craziest thing about it is it was so close to not only not working, but... Everyone being like, he's the fucking worst.
Like, I'm so happy what happened with Cat. Because Cat was literally so close to it going the other way. And now, for me, I think Cat's a Hall of Famer now.
I think he is right now. If you actually look at his numbers. Yeah.
Yeah. He's a champion now. And he was a huge part of the championship.
I think so too. But also unlocking him the way that we did. 100%.
You know, like. But you know what? Basketball aside.
Because, you know, when you get to know these guys, basketball becomes secondary to these guys. They're like good people. You know?
And that's what I think makes a big difference. So good on them. I really hope that this season is going to be just as good as last year's, if not better.
We have an incredible collection coming this year, as we do every year. But this year we're celebrating, I could tell you that we're celebrating Walkeye Frazier this year. Love that.
And some of the imagery that you see, like there's going to be some really cool shit that we do there. And we got a couple of other really great moments lined up. for the Knicks.
So I'm very excited about that. And being in the role, you know, you asked me a question like, what does that entail? And it's, you know, we, we, I meet with the team and we discuss the aesthetics and the digital content, what it looks like, what it feels like.
And we discuss emotion and that's very important. Same lens as Kath. Yeah.
We apply that. And that's what I, that's what I'm there to do, you know, is to apply the same, that same lens. Most surprising thing with working with the Knicks.
What do you say it was?
The chip. I mean, like it's, it's not, it was, it was an expectation that I think people had from the beginning of the season, but it's surprising in a way where, you know, you see this many people come out the way they did. And this, the whole, the whole city getting behind it in the way that they did.
Like, it's crazy to see, cause I mentioned it. If you go back. To the Roommates podcast, I mentioned that I thought that the Knicks were the most culturally relevant team in the world.
And then that was way before they won the chip. And then you see what happened after they won the chip. And then you see why.
When the Knicks are good, the city is great. The NBA is great. Oh, the NBA.
That goes without saying. The NBA is more than great. But the city, what the city felt like during that run, it was insane.
And I had... It was fucked up, but I had a procedure done on my leg. I had melanoma at the time that they were winning in the chip and I had to have surgery on my leg.
So I couldn't make it. I made it to, I think it was game. I made it to game three and they lost that game, but I had to walk because fucking Trump came and they shut down 20 square blocks and I wasn't supposed to walk on my leg.
And then I ended up having to walk. like, three miles to get to my seat. And I was in so much fucking pain, but it didn't matter.
Well worth it. But then I didn't go to game four because they told me that they're shutting down around the arena again. So I ended up watching it at Ivy.
And my friend Dan went with his kids. And I remember at halftime, he was like, my kids are crying. They don't want to be here.
I told them we can't leave. I was like, Dan, place a fucking bet it's going to turn around. Trust me.
And they ended up winning. That OG game? Yeah, that's OG game, game four.
And I missed that game because of what I had, my procedure to my leg. And then I was supposed to go to San Antonio, but I couldn't go. So like I missed what I typically would have done.
Like I would have gone to the games and I'll always remember that being a very shitty part of the run. And then when it comes to like watching, when the closeout game, like I have to watch a closeout game by myself. Like if I'm not at the game, like I have to watch it solo.
I watched it solo and I was like, I watched it with my wife, but that was a crazy few days, man. It was just the best. That was the World Cup too.
That was like a nice two, three week bender. We were here shooting. You just felt it everywhere.
Dude, no matter where you lived, I don't care if you, even if you're like European or Asian, like your algorithm was getting bombarded with Nick's shit everywhere. It was crazy. Memes were so good.
And just the people going outside going absolutely fucking ape shit. We'll pop a bunch of those up. The Gary shit, Vaynerchuk.
We'll pop up that episode as well. Him just going fucking nuts in the middle of nowhere in Poland at like fucking three o 'clock in the morning. Yeah, man.
Yeah. Yeah, Gary's a real fan, man. And I love Gary, but he's a real one.
You know, we've been to the games together and we've actually went to away games together and he's a fucking real one, man. Yes, he loves the Knicks. I want to just talk a little bit about the future and the book before we get into Quick Strike.
Let's talk about today, the future, the legacy. I'm going to start with a crazy question. Would you ever sell Keth?
I can't answer forever on anything, to be honest. So I'm not going to say something and then, you know, be in a situation where I have to do something. I don't know.
But right now, no. As of right now, no. And that's just how you make decisions, period?
It's just, it's never a hard yes or no. Everything's malleable. Nothing is a hard yes or no because circumstances change in life.
And I've learned that in so many other non -business related matters. So, you know, we take it, I like to think three to five years out and we take it one day at a time, but I've changed my mind on so many things so many times, you know, and right now I still have so much to give and I'm still able to be as creative as I ever have been.
And I'm able to be, I think, a good leader and a good boss. And as long as I feel like that's the case, then. I keep going.
What does Kith cost you personally that people can't see? I know we talked a little bit about the journey. That's a great, that's a great question, man.
Everything. It's cost me everything. I mean, this is, and this is, I think what the younger generation, like if there's anything that I could pass down to the younger generation, it's devotion is like such an important word.
you know, and what I've sacrificed, the family time, the weddings, the birthdays, the vacations, the trips, the, you know, the friend, like I haven't been able to build like really true friendships, you know, where I'm taking time out to like, and this is why I told you we do those trips because it's the only time I get to see my friends.
And those are my real friends, you know, like, yeah, we're on group chats and, you know. I fuck around when I can and text and talk or whatever, but like it's very rare. And I just, I don't have the time to get on a call.
And I check up on my friends. I call my friends like no agenda, randomly just to see how they're doing. And that's what friendships are.
No agenda is a friendship. That's what friendships are, right? So I do check up on them once in a while, but I've given up.
I would say the biggest thing I've given up is family time. And I don't mean with my wife and my kids. I mean with my immediate family, you know, my parents, my sister, my aunts, my cousin, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins.
Like we used to, when we were kids, we used to go away together on like summer vacations and that's no longer the case. So I think, I think that that's, um, but I, but I gotta say I'm, I'm willingly doing so. No one's forcing me to do that, but I know what I need to do.
to maximize the potential of this. And that's the problem with me. And it's, it's not a problem.
I guess it's like a gift and a curse is that I always have to maximize the potential of whatever it is I'm working on. Like I'll never do something. If I'm sweeping the floor, I'm going to sweep the fucking floor.
Like the floor will be clean. You get what I mean? So it's just the way that I am.
And when I'm in something, I'm just fucking in it. So for someone that wants to build what you've built outside of devotion. Is there any other big things that you want to pass on to the next generation?
Work ethic. And I think that has a lot to do with devotion. Which is getting demonized in this world we live in.
And that's why I bring it up. And also purpose. People are moving without purpose.
I'm not cut from that cloth and I don't come from that era. Half my life is pre -internet era. And I'm so thankful for that.
I say half my life, but every year that changes because now I'm 44. So I would say like, you know, maybe it's like 53, you know, 47. But moving with purpose, I think that would be the most important advice I could give someone.
But you need the context surrounding that, finding a passion and then moving with purpose. You know, so like being passionate and then being able to be rewarded with happiness. as a result of product is all of there are pieces there that then make it worth it you know but for the younger generation that doesn't necessarily know what they don't know what they don't know so like getting started is the hardest part I think for them because figuring out what they're passionate about is is harder than ever right now Because they're being thrown so much information.
So much bullshit. So much bullshit that how can you really decipher between bullshit and substance? Like, how are they going to weed through that and then pick what they think is the substance that will make them happy if they work at it?
I just find it so hard to believe that there's someone right now working at a store in the stock room, building their way up and saying, I'll wait 15 years to get to this point. I just, I feel like so many people are just looking for the fast track. That's really what it comes down to.
And that's honestly like, I want to believe that I'm not part of the reasoning behind that, but showcasing the end result of product sometimes can, I think, create that emotion. Like the end result is what they see. I wish that there was a way for me to showcase the process more than I do.
And I'm going to try, and I've been trying to figure that out. I really have been.
I just, I don't want a camera in my fucking face all day. You know, that's my biggest, and I don't want to like. I did that for 18 months.
I had a guy follow me around for 12 to 15 hours a day. Basketball games, Turks and Caicos, meetings. It becomes.
It's weird from a social perspective as well, too. And that's, you know, that's... How much of your life can you not show?
I mean, that's the conversation I had with Gary, too, off camera. Is it just like, he can't show, like, you're not going to show us the conversation in the room with the guy from BMW. You know?
You're going to show us the B -roll. I wish that people were there for that, but I'm here to tell those stories. You know?
It's not like I don't have those stories to tell. So... You know, eventually those stories will all come out in detail, whether it's now or post my career, whatever it is.
And I'm here doing this podcast because I want to give information. So if the right questions are asked, I'll sit down and I'll gladly speak on it because I want to inspire the youth. And, you know, through our Connect Foundation, where we bring kids in and we bring like a cohort of 15 kids in every year.
And we change their lives. They're like juniors in high school when they come in and they get to see what we do. And, you know, they get a mentor in different categories of the business.
And we help kids that wouldn't typically end up going to college. We help, you know, make sure that they then attend. And we have like 100 % conversion rate on that.
That's dope. I didn't know that. Guys, I'm going to pop down below some information on that.
I did not know that. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's a huge.
It's a big part of what we do. I have some great personnel between Emily and Sharifa who head this foundation within my office in Williamsburg. And it's a big part of the purpose around what I do.
I'm trying to affect people's lives by giving them the information and the access so that they could build a passion for something. And it's not for everybody and not everybody will be compassionate about it. But if I could affect a few people by giving them insight and by giving them, you know, a foot in the door, then that's, I think that that's the best that I can do.
You know, you've passed off a lot on this book. Let's talk about this book. I know you're going to have a lot more coming down the pipeline.
I have the 10 year book. The 15 year book is coming out soon. Why don't you tell us just a little bit about the book?
The book is fucking monstrous. It's, I think it's the biggest book that Asselin has ever created. Actually, I know it is.
It's definitely the heaviest. And what the book represents is the full archive of every footwear release. And it was reshot and the whole book is shot by Tyler.
Who's an OG with the brand. OG with the brand. The only, if Tyler wouldn't shoot this book, I wouldn't make the book.
Truthfully. Tyler, he's giving you those flowers. Nah, he knows that.
I give him flowers every time I speak to him. So all of the shoes were reshot. It took a long fucking time.
I think it took like eight months. And then the index, so like it shows it's by brand and it's chronologically by brand. And then, why don't you take a look at this?
And then at the end of the book. We're going to do a ton of B -roll on this book too, but yeah. At the end of the book, you have the index.
And the index is all of my. It's massive. No, the book is crazy, man.
Damn. Yeah, it's everything. It's everything that we released.
And then the index, go to the end of the book where the page quality changes. Wow. Oh, yeah.
You're going to wow every page. So don't do that. Oh, and that's everything.
I'm just going to flip to the last page. I would say, I mean, we said a bunch of things. I think collabs is a big one.
Your product photography. Yeah, we take that seriously. I mean, that is, you are the number one reference point on that.
I appreciate that. Wow, this is insane.
Yeah, so it's by brand and therefore, you know, the purpose of the index is so you could see the samples leading up to the final product. You understand what I'm saying? Yep.
So that people can understand the work that goes behind it. Wow. On a per skew perspective, you're showing the match.
Oh, wow. Exactly. And then the bold letters represent the style that was released.
And the non -bold letters are the samples leading up to the release. And sometimes they don't release at all. Sometimes none of them are bold because they don't release.
Ronnie's got a $20 million fund on the ProDose here. Jeez, man. It's really wild to see some of these, I mean, have multiple protos obviously before.
What do you hope people think about Kith in another 15 years under the notion that you're thinking through that lens before we get into these final questions here?
I'm going to expand what it is that we do. That's my biggest, that's like right now, what makes me happy and what makes me like excited is thinking about what we haven't done and then attacking it. And, and accomplishing certain aspects of this world that people in my position wouldn't even dare to think about.
You know, being, I got to tell you, like the most frustrating part of what I, what I do, and I should say like in the earlier years specifically, was people trying to dictate what it is that I should be doing. And what I shouldn't be doing. Like, what are you doing that for?
Like, you know, like their vision of the brand has a start and an end point when really the brand is my life. So the end point to me currently today is when I die, right? So I have dreams of shit that I would like to do.
A lot of different avenues of like, light of lifestyle human behavior i want to change human behavior and have a positive impact on people's lives right and that's ivy is the start of that you know and i think that where it goes from there is uncharted territory obviously but i have i have plans that i'm in the middle of ideating and putting on paper in the realm of hospitality hospitality is a portion of it but I'm gonna even like thinking about getting into a membership club and then having the impact that we did on that category I changed people's lives like people tell me it's like their lives are so much better because of the club that they're members of you know good food I've been there Yeah, great food, but the purpose of the club, you know, and that's just one avenue.
A membership club is one avenue. I'm speaking about other things that I'm going to get into, you know, and hospitality is definitely like a passion of mine right now. Love that.
That'll be a part two. All right, we're going to fire off a million fucking questions right now. Before you go, I'd love your opinion on this stuff.
Are they multiple choice or what do we got? Kind of, yeah. They're quick and easy.
Okay. One word to describe Nigel Sylvester? There's so many things that I could say right now.
You want me to say one word? I was going to say menace. There's so many words that I could use right now.
He's like a gem. That's what I would say. Jonah Hill.
A product nerd. Jason Alexander. One of our best shoots.
David Grutman. A unicorn. Greg Yuna.
Actually the unicorn, but I'll say... He should be the menace, actually. Just a really, a really great friend.
A really, really great friend. Your dad. Most important person in my life.
I'm going to go through a couple brands. I'd love to know what you think their superpower is in the marketplace. Okay.
Adidas. Their superpower is the history of corchus. New Balance.
The only independent brand left in that top tier of footwear.
Asics. The Japanese perfection that I admire. Clarks.
Modern, no. Craftsmanship brought into the modern era. Ahn.
Disruptor. Wilson. Strongest tennis heritage.
Best designer not named you.
Giorgio Armani.
Top three sneakers or shoes in your personal collection. Specific shoes? Yeah.
My Salmon Toe Asics that I'm wearing today because of what it meant in my career. The Air Max 95 Neon in a new iteration that I can't talk about yet. And I would say New Balance 990 V3 in this UA colorway that's coming out with this book because that's the shoe that I always wanted in that colorway, and it's finally coming together.
The most underrated garment ever released by Kith. Every time we work on leather product out of Italy, so we have this new calfskin that we sourced out of New Zealand that I really love, and we made this leather jacket for fall. It's this burgundy leather jacket that you're also going to pop up on the screen right here.
I would say our leather garments out of Italy. Looking back, the collab, celeb hit, retailer, what was that one moment that you think Kith really broke through? I think there are a lot of before and after moments for the brand, but I will say I think the moment with LeBron was massive when we opened the LA store because we opened LA with LeBron.
Was that the Pippin too? Yeah, the Pippin opened, the Pippin project opened the Lafayette building. that I was telling you about when we moved from Broadway.
And the LeBron project opened the LA store. But working with LeBron, you know, a lot of people don't know this, but I directed a documentary about LeBron on and off. It was called Long Live the King, and it was about his life on and off the court.
That was a great process. And I think that working with Nike on that, that was like working with Nike's pinnacle athlete on presenting a new silhouette in the 15. for the first time on the runway when we did our fashion show and then having a shared patent with Nike on that silhouette that had a zipper that zipped all the way down the middle of the shoe that he played with and then creating the shoes for his high school and my high school like that moment was legendary I think that that was probably the biggest before and after moment there have been really big moments after that but I think that that was a that was a game changer best business advice you ever got How about this?
I won't give you the business advice, but I'll give you life advice that then apply to businesses. Every day should be unwrapped like a precious gift. That's nice.
Mount Rushmore of Kith campaigns. Pick four of them. The most iconic.
We're going to pop them up.
Seinfeld.
Edward Norton.
Scorsese.
And Adrian Brody.
Proudest non -work moment in your life? Both of my kids. Having both of my kids.
Both of my girls. Love that. Last four questions I ask everybody.
Favorite book or podcast and why?
Favorite book would be Ride of a Lifetime. The Liger? Yeah.
You a podcast guy? I listen as much as I could. Again, like I don't have – I live close to work, so I don't have that time.
But sometimes taking a trip out east, I'll listen to podcasts. My favorite podcast episode, I would say, was the – I would say it was Senra – Travis? No, Steve Stout.
We need to get Steve Stout on here. Yeah. Steve Stout is such an important person in – I just I loved everything like his his BTS commentary on like how things were happening behind closed doors in in music, but also in in marketing gave me so much insight that I love to hear.
So I hit him up as soon as I heard that podcast. That was so much information that I didn't know about beforehand. And I think that the best podcasts actually like educate you and and open up your eyes to things you don't know about.
Great storyteller. entrepreneur or brand that you want to give flowers to and why? I'm going to say Emilio Andor because I've known Teddy since he worked at a diner and I've seen him just do really beautiful things and tell beautiful stories and also bring his life and lifestyle into what he loves the most, which right now he loves boating.
And, you know, you're seeing that. transfer into the brand so he's bringing his life into the brand which which i know is very rewarding but also very difficult to do great brand i'm glad you said it too because i never know how to pronounce it yeah how big can kith be last question no ceiling there is no ceiling good ending appreciate you bro thanks a lot man appreciate it
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The episode opens on its own ending: asked what Kith has cost him, the founder answers 'everything' before the trailer even starts. What follows is two hours on how a brand built with no paid ads, no influencers, no wholesale, and no outside money got to global lines on release day, and why the stores, the pricing, and the collaborations all come back to transferring one person's emotion about product.
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Two agency founders lay out a 30-day sprint of copy work, shot listing, and five posting formats, designed to be run before any growth tactic gets touched.
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