Kith

Ronnie Fieg launched Kith in 2011 in partnership with Sam Ben-Avraham, owner of the New York retailer Atrium. He had spent years as head buyer for his cousin’s New York sneaker chain David Z. There, he built a reputation through collaborations like the 2007 ASICS ‘252 Pack.’

The name came from “kith and kin,” and the early proposition was a multi-brand store with an in-house label attached, stocking Adidas, New Balance, Puma, and Timberland alongside Fieg’s own collaborations. From the start, the press framed it as a community project as much as a retailer. As one Robb Report profile put it, the name declared Fieg’s aim to create not so much a store as a community.

Menswear became the engine of the business once the in-house apparel line arrived. In 2012, Kith’s in-house apparel line was launched, and in 2016 Kith held its first show at New York Fashion Week. The clothes pulled from a New York sportswear vocabulary, with fleece hoodies, varsity jackets, rugby shirts, wide-wale corduroys, boxy tees, and seasonal nylon outerwear, often delivered through the brand’s Monday Program drops.

Footwear remained central, with the ASICS Gel-Lyte III “Salmon Toe” from 2011 functioning as the founding object of the catalog. Culturally, Kith sat alongside contemporaries such as Fear of God and John Elliott, both of which are carried by Kith, and operated in the same orbit as Aimé Leon Dore and Supreme. A notable credential came in late 2022, when Fieg was named the first-ever Creative Director of the New York Knicks.

The business has scaled from a single 800-square-foot shop into a global retail footprint while keeping Fieg as owner-operator. The Kith flagship store at 337 Lafayette Street, opened in 2017, is the crown jewel of the Kith empire that has since spread to Hawaii, Osaka, Seoul, and Paris.

Collaborations have widened the brand’s reach well beyond apparel, including a long partnership with ASICS, a co-designed BMW M4 Competition, and a 2025 Estate Collection with Giorgio Armani.

The brand now dresses a customer who came in through sneakers and stayed for tailored trousers, knitwear, and outerwear, sitting between American sportswear and the European houses it increasingly partners with. That trajectory was formalized in 2024 with the launch of &Kin, an unbranded ready-to-wear sub-label whose tailoring is produced in partnership with Giorgio Armani.

With the opening of Kith Ivy, a members’ club at 120 Leroy Street where SoHo meets the West Village, the company has extended into hospitality while keeping menswear at the center of what it sells.