Ronnie Fieg

Fieg was born and raised in Queens, New York, and some of his earliest memories are of going to New York Knicks games with his father. At 13 he started as a stock boy at the footwear chain David Z., a downtown New York shoe store run by his uncle; in the mid-1990s he was selling boots there, and he went on to work his way up from junior buyer to the buyer who opened athletic footwear accounts, eventually becoming chief buyer and manager and building a network of relationships with brands in retail.⁠[1][2][2][3][3][1]

After Fieg opened an account with ASICS at David Z., the brand invited him to pick a shoe from its archive to redesign. He chose the GEL-Lyte III, a shoe he had worn as a child until the soles had holes in them. The first collaboration, the “252 Pack,” was released in May 2007, landed on the front cover of The Wall Street Journal, and sold out in less than 24 hours, launching his career and a long-running partnership with ASICS.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][2]

In 2010, Fieg’s ASICS GEL-Lyte III “Cove” colorway was released, its simple color blocking drawing attention once again.⁠[3]

In 2011, Fieg founded Kith in New York, opening its first stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn at the same time and selling brands such as Adidas, Puma, New Balance, and Timberland alongside his own collaborations with ASICS and Nike; Kith marks September 30 as its anniversary.⁠[1][3][3][4]

That same year he released the ASICS GEL-Lyte III “Salmon Toe” in very small numbers to honor the opening of the first Kith store, later releasing versions for Kith’s fifth and tenth anniversaries in 2016 and 2021; that year he also released the New Balance “Salmon Sole” collaboration. Fieg later recalled that the Salmon Toe really jumpstarted his career, making people trust his point of view on footwear, and also helped revive the industry’s interest in retro-tech running silhouettes from the 1990s.⁠[5][5][3][6][6]

In 2015, Fieg revamped the Brooklyn store to add Kith Treats, his own cereal and ice cream bar; the space was designed by the studio Snarkitecture and features 750 cast white Air Jordan 2s hanging from the ceiling. Kith Treats grew out of his childhood love of cereal and later expanded to 18 locations, plus one standalone space.⁠[3][3][1]

In 2016, Kith opened its Miami flagship and a mountain-inspired pop-up store in Aspen, Colorado; that year Fieg also marked his 50th collaboration with ASICS. In 2018, Kith opened a store in Los Angeles, and Kith Treats was behind the revival of the “Got Milk?” milk mustache campaign; Kith also collaborated with Coca-Cola and staged the Kith Park runway show, which featured collaborations with Tommy Hilfiger and Versace. In 2019, Kith opened its first location outside the United States, at Selfridges in London.⁠[3][3][3][3][3]

Starting in 2022, Kith expanded its food and beverage business, opening Sadelle’s at Kith with Major Food Group at Kith Paris and later at the Kith stores in the Miami Design District, Toronto, and Seoul; in 2025, Kith also opened Ronnie’s Pronto in West Hollywood and Ronnie’s in London.⁠[1][1]

In November 2022, Fieg became the first creative director of the New York Knicks, responsible for building a community around the team’s brand and developing an in-house product line. Earlier, in 2020, he had released a collaborative apparel collection with the Knicks and designed City Edition jerseys, and Kith had designed the home court at Madison Square Garden and refurbished a playground court in Queens, where he grew up. At “Kith Night” on November 11, the Kith-designed 2022–23 City Edition uniforms and court were unveiled, and the first collection went on sale at a pop-up shop in the arena before launching online the next day. Fieg said the immediate work was to bring consistency to how people view the Knicks as a brand and, in the long run, to help grow it into a global identity.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

To mark Kith’s 15th anniversary, Kith held an exhibition at 25 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn from September 25 to 27, 2026, putting all 1,849 pairs from Fieg’s footwear archive on public display for the first time, and published a 444-page commemorative book with Assouline, Kith: The Footwear Archive, which launched globally on the anniversary, September 30. A 15th-anniversary retro of the ASICS GEL-Lyte III “Salmon Toe” was released on September 28.⁠[4][4][4][4][5]

Speaking to Highsnobiety at the exhibition, Fieg said some earlier pieces in the archive may feel polarizing but that he would not remove them from the timeline, since every piece was a stepping stone; he also said he rarely looks back to retro old shoes unless it is a monumental anniversary.⁠[6][6]

As of October 2026, Fieg is Kith’s CEO and creative director and also chairs the board of The Kinnect Foundation, Kith’s in-house non-profit devoted to education, community, and social impact. Kith operates 20 standalone boutiques around the world and has shop-in-shops at Hirshleifers and Selfridges, with stores in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Hawaii, London, Paris, Tokyo, Osaka, Toronto, and Seoul; its collaborators include Coca-Cola, Nike, BMW, the NFLNFLThe NFL (National Football League) is a U.S. professional American football league of 32 clubs. Founded in 1920 as the APFA and renamed in 1922, it is organized into the AFC and NFC, with the season culminating in the Super Bowl.Open the full entry, Disney, Versace, and Giorgio Armani.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

Kith: Official website: https://kith.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]