Last night Ronnie Fieg christened his newly-expanded KITH shop with a handsomely-dressed soiree of rappers, sports stars and fellow fashion designers. The sleek space, which boasts floor-to-ceiling shelving and life-sized display cases, was designed by Snarkitecture and Fieg to highlight the breadth of his latest clothing line. Functional renovations aside, the Bleecker Street boutique features an army of white sneakers hanging from the ceiling, a wall dotted with KITH-branded pencils and a curated collection of snazzy fashion magazines—flashy additions that add to allure of this high-end street wear and exclusive sneaker shop. In between snapping flicks with Victor Cruz and watching Travis Scott jump all over stuff, we pulled Fieg away from the festivities to quickly chat about the new space, how he deals with haters and find out the one shitty denim trend that he blew his teenage dollars on.
On dealing with haters
"I don't deal with any of that. I didn't know I had any….I'm kidding! There are a lot. I don't pay attention to that. It used to help me and fuel my fire, but I don't need that anymore because I have my team to keep me ambitious and keep me wanting to do what I do. It's always important to stunt. That's what grows the hating community, and to be honest with you at some point it's a level of maturity to really not have that impact what you do anymore. I feel like when I was younger it might have affected me a lot more than it does now, but today I really don't even pay attention to my haters."
On the store redesign
"I wanted to tell a story through the eyes of Snarkitecture and be able to merchandise things correctly. We have an apparel line that's 90 styles deep right now, so we want to be able to tell a story. But the inspiration behind the matte white, matte black, and stainless steel look was so we could get a very sleek and modern look but at the same time not take away from the apparel."
On the one trend that he regrets
"I regret hopping on the Parasuco trend back in the day, because I spent a lot of money on those fucking things. I had a ton of pairs. It was 1997, I was 15. That was young Ronnie's style then."