Catching Up With KidSuper
From reworking iconic PUMA silhouettes to a dreamlike collaboration with Louis Vuitton, an in-depth conversation with the NYC-based creative.
KidSuper isn’t like other streetwear brands. There’s no disaffected cool, no subtle tweaking of the same concepts drop after drop. Sometimes it doesn’t look like a clothing brand at all. In fact, it’s easy to forget KidSuper is a business. The name says it all.
Colm Dillane founded the label selling T-shirts to his friends in the Brooklyn Tech High School cafeteria as a teenager. “I was 15 [or] 14,” Dillane reflected.
“I had gone to Supreme, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m from New York City, this is what everyone is talking about, let’s go see what the hype’s about,'” said Dillane, who studied mathematics at NYU. “So, I go there and I’m 14 but I look like I was 9, and they treated me like complete assholes. You don’t have to be an asshole or this exclusive to be cool.”
He started his then-T-shirt line soon after, based around an ethos of inclusivity, openness and an anything-is-possible mentality. Since then, it’s become a launchpad for wild, strange, and endlessly fun dreams merging Dillane’s New York streetwear vision and aesthetic with childlike energy. Think: a fashion show in a circus in Paris with brightly colored, statement apparel tailored by Dapper Dan’s Big L, a breakdancing bullfighter, and Dillane’s own parents as models. A Williamsburg studio doubling as a recording and visual arts studio, with team members living in the building and artists like Young Thug and Mahershala Ali dropping in for collaborations. Projects—say, a ski goggle collab with A$AP TyY that leads to a music video and a spontaneous helicopter ski trip—are expansive and creative.
In 2020, Dillane released a project that was his most ambitious to date: a KidSuper x Puma collaboration dropped in two seasons with five unique shoes and 20 articles of clothing in each.
“I had gotten to where the next step was collaborating with a major brand,” said Dillane over the phone from Brooklyn. “I’ve made a soccer jersey for Nike. I had done a screen printing workshop with Converse. I’ve done a makeshift custom jacket for adidas. The next step was getting a shoe. I had always wanted a shoe with a major brand.” He pitched Nike and Puma and what Puma came back with sealed the deal.
“It’s been unbelievable,” said Dillane. The collection is envisioned as a streetwear soccer brand based in New York City.
“Because I grew up playing soccer I could bring this authentic American soccer experience to one of these big brands that all of them lack completely,” he admitted. It didn’t hurt that Puma has such a strong soccer heritage, having partnered with Pele, Maradona, and Cruyff. (“That’s basically like having Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan and Michael Jordan,” Dillane laughed.).
The best part of the collab? “I only had to use the Puma sole,” explained the designer. “So, all of the uppers are completely original. A lot of these collaborations you see online with other brands and other designers—all they’re doing is color-switching or bringing back a vintage silhouette. What they’re doing with me—these are completely unique and original shoes. I didn’t even think that would be possible.”
You don’t have to be an asshole or exclusive to be cool.
Colm Dillane
The collection includes banana-yellow Nitefox running shoes, a statement pastel slider with a cartoonish embroidered puma leaping across the top; plus streetwear-injected apparel, like a honey peach blazer with soccer players embroidered in red stitching and a color-tripping graphic bowler shirt. These are pieces that are a little more ‘fashion’ and certainly more streetwear than your typical straightforward technical wardrobe.
“They’re really, really, really strange,” grinned Dillane of the shoes. “They’re just one of a kind. Not only are they super unique and different, but it shows that we really cared about it. Since this was our first collaboration, we really gave it our all.”
This includes a KidSuper x Puma cartoon, set in a bodega with a group of kids who develop bizarre superpowers. (Like everything else KidSuper, it goes all out with Usain Bolt, Jessie Reyez and Niche of Flatbush Zombies giving audio.) There is also a KidSuper x Puma soccer field.
All these multimedia efforts as a young creative present their struggles, of course. “Everything is kind of a challenge, nothing is smooth,” said Dillane. “No one is working harder. We’re staying up all night. There are times when I have zero dollars in my bank account. Even six months ago, I didn’t have enough for an Uber home, so I had to walk across the bridge.”
“You have to keep going and you get kind of inspired by possibilities,” he continued. “I just don’t know how many dreams of mine Puma is going to fulfill, but they’re really fucking crushing it. The cool thing is as I grow, my dreams grow. I’m just allowed to dream bigger.”