Matt Varga While Ronnie Fieg promised fireworks towards the top of the year as KITH entered its 15th year of operation, to our eye, it’s been much of the same heavy collaborative fare that we’ve come to expect from the NY imprint. However, as the summer has turned to fall, it appears the celebration is starting in earnest, first with a tease of an ASICS GEL-Lyte 3 “Salmon Toe” retro and now with the announcement of KITH: The Footwear Archive, a physical representation of the brand’s last decade and a half.
In a vacuum, a compendium of all the footwear brands and the efforts therewithin would be impressive enough. Yet this Assouline-backed edition is truly a record of what Fieg and co. have cooked up at every step. The book is split into two parts, remembering all 700 publicly released pairs with renewed studio images. The back half is the real red meat for the KITH completionist; individual shots of every sample recount the comprehensive archive, from pairs that we’ve gotten the chance to grab to ones that haven’t ever seen the light of day. In advance images, you can make out cutting room floor versions of the Pippen 1, Maestro 2 High, LeBron 15, Air Force 1, Bape Sta, 997, 530, and plenty more.
KITH: The Footwear Archive Classic edition releases on September 30th via KITH stores worldwide, before also landing at Assouline boutiques on December 9th. Additionally, KITH is hosting an exhibit from September 25th to 27th at 25 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn with a full display of every shoe shown in this volume. The Ultimate Edition, bearing a leather monogram clamshell and a Fieg autograph, drops on September 30th, limited to 300 copies in total.
