Kith and New Balance unveil first original sneaker for 15th anniversary

Kith marked its 15th anniversary with the New Balance 2011, the first original New Balance silhouette Ronnie Fieg has designed for the brand. After more than thirty silhouettes together, the launch shifts the partnership from archive-minded revivals into something more ambitious: a brand-new running model built to stand on its own.

Development on the 2011 began two years before release, with Fieg and the New Balance team aiming to create a modern shoe with heritage running cues. The sneaker was developed with New Balance designer Sam Pierce and arrives in pigskin suede, perforated mesh-style panels, and full-length ABZORB cushioning, a combination that gives the shoe the kind of material depth and underfoot comfort New Balance loyalists actually notice. The model takes its name from 2011, the year Kith opened its first location inside Atrium at 644 Broadway in NoHo, folding the anniversary back into the brand’s own origin story.

The collection comes in four colorways, Bark, Redwood, Leaf, and Sakura, each pushing the shoe toward a different seasonal register without losing the clean, retro-leaning shape that makes New Balance collaborations easy to read on sight. Kith said the anniversary drop extends beyond footwear, with apparel and accessories in the mix, and the commemorative packaging and lookbook were inspired by artwork from Zac Crawford. That detail matters because Kith has long understood that the surrounding world of a release, the graphics, the box, the styling, can carry as much cachet as the sneaker itself.

The 2011 also shows how much ground Fieg has covered with New Balance. Sneaker News says his output is nearing 100 unique releases, a staggering number for any single collaborator, while Kith frames the 2011 as the culmination of a 15-year partnership. The shoe will debut exclusively in-store at New Balance at Kith on Friday, June 26, before a global launch on Monday, June 29. At 15 years in, Kith is no longer just interpreting New Balance history. It is helping write a new chapter for it.