Ronnie Fieg Seeks Balance of Value, Restraint and Risk as Kith Continues to Expand

After taking a rare opportunity to look back during Kith’s 15th anniversary in September, Ronnie Fieg quickly got back to work on his ambitious agenda.

Kith’s third collection with Giorgio Armani was shown in mid-October at a mega show in the Moroccan desert, and just two weeks later its second Canadian store, and 22nd worldwide, opened in Vancouver.

That kind of pace might not work for other brands, especially in a challenging economy, but Fieg — Kith’s founder, chief executive officer and creative director — sees Kith having two important qualities as it treads new ground: a strong point of view and value.

“When you speak about value, it’s not only in the product. It’s about how [consumers] value your brand within incorporating it into their daily life,” Fieg said during a fireside chat with Michael Atmore, editor in chief of WWD and chief brand officer of Fairchild Media at WWD’s Apparel and Retail CEO Summit. “We’re focused on how they’re wearing the product, how they feel when they speak about the product: all that matters a lot. I come from a buying background when I was at David Z, so I’m a merchandiser and a buyer by trade. I still think like the consumer, and that’s the most important part of my business.”

Consumers will have more opportunity to interact with the Kith world in 2027. Fieg revealed the brand will expand into San Francisco and Washington D.C., through stores and restaurant locations for Ronnie’s in both cities. And if that weren’t enough, the Miami Beach location, opened in 2016 as the first door outside of New York City, will also get a revamp.

Fieg said he seeks to build spaces that consumers view as destinations, where they will spend the day hanging out.

As to what informs expansion, data plays a role, but that’s only part of the equation. Web sales have been strong in Vancouver, but it still wasn’t enough to fully back a 7,000-square-foot space or prepare Fieg to expect the 3,000 people who showed up on opening day. There was risk involved, but it was important to the founder to have a presence on both Canadian coasts.

“As long as I have the energy that I have, I’m going to continue to push the limits because that’s the DNA of what we’ve done,” Fieg said. “We’ve broken through so many barriers of what people consider to be unexpected from us. The swings are much larger, the investments are much larger.”

Case in point: the fashion show in Morocco, which was two years in the making. Also outside the expected playbook was last year’s opening of Kith Ivy, a members-only wellness and padel club in the West Village opened in partnership with Giorgio Armani, Wilson Sporting Goods, Erewhon and Cafe Mogador.

The idea for the luxury space came to Fieg during a winter sojourn in Miami, his wife’s hometown. During the trip, he started to take up the racket sport. He saw others playing in vintage T-shirts and basketball shorts, inspiring him to create a mood board to better shape the identity of the sport through what’s worn and even where it’s played.

As Kith continues to tackle new territory, Fieg’s vision is to always make the brand experience feel special.

“People have reset what they want out of luxury,” Fieg said. “If it’s already available to me in so many points of distribution, then I feel like I already owned it, had it, wore it and threw it out by then. Luxury brands used to be focused on the scarcity model, where if you go to a shop in the city, it might have been the highlight of your day regardless of if you bought something. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish with what I consider to be the new luxury.”

Ultimately, though, Fieg is still concerned about the customer not knowing the difference between what’s good and great. He’s scared of attention spans being shortened, with the consumption of 10-second clips eradicating true curiosity.

“My kids now are getting so much information thrown at them,” Fieg said. “I’m worried that people won’t be able to get as passionate as they’ve been in the past about something that they love. I don’t even know if they could start loving it in the first place.”