Who is ronnie fieg

By twenty-three, I became a buyer. And I started opening up athletic footwear accounts for David Z. I opened up the Asics account with David in Vegas at a trade show. Fast forward a little bit and [it] was doing really well as Onitsuka Tiger at David Z.

We were selling, like, wrestling shoes at the time, because those were hitting as a trend. And the Mexico 66, and the Ultimate 81, those shoes were hitting really hard for the Europeans on Broadway.

But most people know you for your Asics collaborations. They approached me with a catalog to look through. Back in the day my mom was shopping at Tennis Junction, which is a sneaker store in Great Neck, where my aunt lives.

I remember I was crying to my mom for a pair of Reebok Pumps back then—because everybody wanted Reebok Pumps back in the day—and she went into the store and came out with a pair of Asics Gel Lyte III, which at the time I hated.

I wore them till they had holes in the soles. I wanted to get another pair, but they were discontinued. So when they gave me the catalog to pick a style out of the catalog to work on, I saw the Gel Lyte III, and obviously that was a nostalgic moment for me.

What was it like with those early collaborations when you were unknown? I had a little bit of pressure on me, because I created pairs of these shoes, and I was unknown back then. So I called on a few friends. We threw an event at the store. The next day, we sold a few pairs. I told the story that I just told you to a gentleman who bought the shoes. The next day, there was a line around the block.

They were. It was less about me and more about the collaboration between where I was working. Kids started started following me and what I was doing back then. People would walk into David Z.

David Z. And no knocks to that business, because that business was very successful. I just felt like the product that I wanted to work on was more elevated than the space in which we were selling the product. So I wanted to leave to start Kith.

At that time, I had worked at David Z. When you were working on the sneakers, did [David] support it? What was his perspective on these collaborations? You can understand that, right? And rightfully so. I grew up in the era in Manhattan with Union and Supreme, and when those retailers first came to life.

I was in love with what they were doing. What I really wanted to do is build a curated lifestyle shop, and not be pigeonholed into one category or another, give the New York vibe of all types of products, multi-brand, and have our own brand.

How you were able to save money to open your own retail space in New York. What was the transition like? So in , the same year that I released the Pack, I also started a very small T-shirt and jacket line called Kith. By , I wanted to leave to open my own shop. Sam, who is my partner, who was the owner of Atrium, approached me to open up a footwear section in the shop. I was going back and forth with what I wanted to do, either to do it on my own or to team up with Sam, or to take a job with an offering that I had.

I had a few offerings from a few big brands. Which ones? I actually had three job offers, which I ended up handing off to friends. It was a decision I had to make. It was the right one, because Sam today is my mentor, my partner, and my best friend.

I slept in the Soho shop, for five days, no shower, just building the store with our bare hands. We pulled off a miracle by building that store. I borrowed money to open the shop. It really took off the minute we opened and the money was paid back in like four months of what it took to open the shop. What were some of those core brands in the beginning? With New Balance, we had their top tier of distribution, and with Adidas we had Consortium, and then with Puma we had Cream.

Were you nervous when you first opened the store? Self-doubt is a motherfucker. You need to actually provide newness and culture-shifting ideas. Was that your plan going in? People are gonna love it or hate it. This is what I love. For me to get my own Captain Crunch cereal, I would have written a check! Do you think about oversaturation with so many collaborations? These are small notches for the bigger picture. We split it up. I could have released everything at one time, and you would have seen it one time, and that would be that.

And it would probably all still sell the same amount, and we probably would have still sold all the product that we did. Your aesthetic and the vibe your brand represents is all across New York and Los Angeles right now, a sort of, bomber jacket with a T-shirt and sweatpants and a cool sneaker.

But I would agree and disagree about my aesthetic being a bomber and sweats and shit like that. Have you made a concerted effort to not be at Bergdorf Goodman prices? I want to make product that washes well, that fits well, that people can continuously wear, and lives in their closets. As a business owner, how do you reconcile that?

You want things that people will keep for a long time, but at the same time, you still want to sell more products, no? You know how many black hoodies I have in my closet? I can afford to wear Rick or Raf or any designer any day that I want. Tailored, tapered, clean, but classic in every way. For Ronnie, a veritable footwear connoisseur and one of the most influential people in sneakers right now, what his attendants were going to wear on their feet was never going to be an afterthought.

So he partnered with Nike to design sneakers for he and his groomsmen. We removed the medial swoosh from both the Blazers and the Air Force 1s and replaced it with our wedding logo. Each pair was personalized and came in special packaging. I am so grateful for my close friends and wanted to make sure I gave them something unique as a token of my appreciation. The bride wore a lace and pearl dress handmade by Shlomit Azrad. Very elegant but sexy at the same time. Their ceremony was outside at Cohav Hayam on the edge of a cliff overlooking the beach.

Hearing that beautiful music play as I watched my wife-to-be walk down the aisle is something I keep playing back in my head. It was perfection. Standing together with our families and seeing all the hard work come together in such a crescendo was otherworldly. After Shir and Ronnie had been pronounced husband and wife, the celebration commenced.

Late night, all of the older family members left, and Sky Gellatly deejayed and played a hip-hop set. We served fried Oreos, Popsicles, and other snacks. Photo: 13th Witness. Our Israeli roots are so important to Shir and me, so we planned excursions for all our friends to show them the beauty and heritage of our motherland.