How Kith’s Ronnie Fieg Became The King Of Sneakers In 2016

Ronnie Fieg has had a very good 2016. His sportswear brand slash retail concept Kith maintained its rocket ship-like trajectory all year, impressing sneakerheads and average guys—who just want a pair of cool sneakers—alike with delivery after delivery after delivery of piping hot exclusive product. Kith collaborated with a list of brands so long that just hearing Ronnie list them seems like an impressive feat, a list that includes (but is not limited to) Rugrats, Colette, Bape, Columbia, Timberland, Asics, Coca-Cola, Iro, Adidas, and Nike (yes, Ronnie teamed up with both Adidas and its mortal enemy Nike in the same calendar year). His Manhattan Kith store doubled in size. He opened a store in Miami. He opened a pop-up shop in Aspen, Colorado. He staged a high-octane fashion show that was part presentation and part nostalgia-tinged hip-hop concert (Fabolous and The Lox performed). But Kith’s constant presence on social media, blogs, and city streets didn’t happen overnight. Once upon a time, Fieg was just a junior buyer at David Z., a downtown footwear shop that specialized in boots, not highly coveted kicks. Slowly, through limited-edition collaborations with brands like Adidas, Asics, and Timberland, he established himself as a gatekeeper of cool. His has been a slow-but-steady takeover of the limited-edition, collaboration-happy, hyped-up retail scene that seems to matter most to millennial shoppers both in sneakers and in apparel. And becoming this successful, this quickly, is not something that comes without its fair share of naysayers. Read more at GQ.