KITH'S FOOTWEAR ARCHIVE BOOK RUNS 444 PAGES

Kith: The Footwear Archive, the Classic edition of Ronnie Fieg's book with Assouline, releases on September 30 at all Kith shops and at 11 AM ET on Kith.com and the Kith App, timed to the brand's 15th anniversary.

The book is a 444 page catalogue of more than 1,800 collaborative footwear models pulled from Fieg's own archive, and it is the largest volume in Assouline's Ultimate and Classics Collection to date. It is also the first time the unreleased and developmental prototypes in that archive have been shown publicly.

1,849 Pairs, One Address in Brooklyn

The book has a physical companion. From September 25 to 27, all 1,849 pairs from the archive were on public display at 25 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn, with general viewing free from noon to 6 p.m. and panels by reservation. That exhibition indexed the whole floor, and the Classic edition is the version you can keep.

The gap between the two numbers is worth noting. The exhibition counted 1,849 pairs; the book describes more than 1,800 models. The two counts measure different things: one counts physical pairs on a floor, the other counts models on a page. Together they show an archive kept both as objects and as a written record.

Kith and Kin Is the Caption Fieg Chose

Fieg's own announcement is built around messages he says he has received from people who were part of the journey from the beginning. He opens with "Kith & Kin. Friends & Family." and closes on gratitude. The tone is a founder thanking a community, not a brand selling a book.

That choice is a signal. A footwear archive could have been pitched as a flex, a list of the biggest names Kith has worked with. Instead the launch leads with the people. The list of partners is there in the book anyway: adidas, Asics, Clarks Originals, Moncler, New Balance, Nike, On and Timberland all appear among the collaborations documented.

Fifteen Years, Read as a Partner List

The launch runs on a video, not a still. Fieg's messages from friends and family are the content, and the thanks is tied to a date: the release lands on the brand's 15th anniversary.

Kith opened in 2011, and the partner list reads like a map of what footwear collaboration became. Clarks Originals and Timberland sit at the heritage end. New Balance, Nike and adidas sit at the performance end. Moncler and On show the brand moving into luxury outerwear and running.

The archive is unusual because it keeps the losers alongside the winners. Prototypes that never reached shelves are part of the record, which is what separates it from a brand history built only from sold out releases. For anyone who studies how a sneaker gets from a sketch to a store, the unreleased samples are the useful part.

The Release Mechanics

The Classic edition arrives on September 30 in three places: every Kith shop, Kith.com and the Kith App. The online drop is set for 11 AM on the Eastern, Greenwich, Central European and Japan clocks, which means one global moment across four time zones. Select Assouline boutiques get the book on December 9.

That is a shared release window rather than a rolling one, and it fits a book about global collaborations. The later Assouline boutique date on December 9 gives the publisher its own beat, three months after the Kith launch.

What the Archive Adds to Kith's 2026

The book lands in a year when Kith has been busy in other lanes. The Kith and Needles collection and an NFL tie in came in late summer, and Kith's Yankees collection marked 30 years since the 1996 title, a nod to the brand's memory for its own heroes. The footwear book is the most complete version of that same instinct: keep the record, show the work.

The read is simple. A brand that documents its own catalogue this thoroughly is telling buyers what it thinks it is: a footwear company with a museum inside it. The Brooklyn exhibition made the case in public for three days, and the 444 page Classic edition makes it permanent.