· Ronnie Fieg
[00:00:00] S1: 100%. And when it happens organically in that way, and people then hear it word of mouth rather than seeing it on Instagram and becoming curious off of a photo, the bridge of emotion that people have to the brand, it just becomes a way stronger bridge, right? When they can discover it themselves based off of what people said or when they walk into the space for the first time, people, in their minds, don't necessarily think the space would be as grand as it is when they walk in. So a lot of the times, and through conversations with some of my GMs in the store, people walk in with suitcases per stop from the airport. And they'll walk into the store and just stand there. And he's like, "It happens multiple times a day where I have to like, 'Excuse me, do you need help?'" And they're like, "No, we're just taking it in." Walking into the West Hollywood store today, it's jaw-dropping. It's like every time I walk in there, I'm emotional when I walk in because I can't believe we've gotten to the point where I can build this for the community, for people to come in and have this kind of space. I can build a space where the product sells itself. At this point, the product has such a great following because there's so much value in the product. I don't need to build these amazing spaces at 1,300, 1,400 dollars a foot, which is what luxury brands are spending. But I do that because this is how I give back to the consumer for giving them an experience they could come in and really cherish. And then they make days out of it where families will come to the store and spend time, like real time in the space. And then they'll go to Treats or they'll go to Ronnie's, and they'll really make a day out of it. So I never take people's time for granted. I never take people's spending power for granted. And I always feel like we need to make better product and offer more at the same price point. Those type of philosophies of the end result of what people get and the substance of what they feel is very different from trying to change human behavior in the way that Steve Jobs has done in the past of his creations are to better people's lives, but through the change of human behavior from going from one style of technology to another. This is familiar product where if you're buying clothes, you're buying clothes. We're not inventing something new there.
· Ronnie Fieg, David Senra
But when you buy an item, like the shirt that I'm wearing, for example, and you put it up dollar for dollar against other product in the market, I do believe, and this is touch and feel, if you want to post two pictures next to each other, you could post a Uniqlo T-shirt next to a Kith T-shirt, not know the difference, and argue about the price point. But this is for the people that know. And that Kith is built for the people that know the difference. Know the difference between what? Good product versus great product. And that's really the motto of the brand. [00:00:00] S0: Say more about how you think about pricing, though. [00:00:00] S1: I always feel that people should get more than what they pay for. So where we price product within the marketplace becomes really important, not only to be competitive, because that's not really the challenge for us. It's mostly about, and we don't look elsewhere at price points, even though I study the market just to have the knowledge. But I don't necessarily apply that as to how we price our product. We look at the previous season or the year before to see how product was priced, and we try to better the product sometimes at the same price or by elevating price points a little bit, but getting a lot more for the product. So- It's not necessarily a formula. It's more of like a touch and feel of being in the business for 31 years, and now knowing the difference between good and great. [00:00:00] S0: Have you read this book called "The Luxury Strategy"? It's a red book with white letters. [00:00:00] S1: I haven't.
· Ronnie Fieg, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: I haven't. [00:00:00] S0: Okay, I'm going to send it to you, because it goes into, I think what you're hitting on is just like, well, there's other people in the industry, and especially the luxury industry, where it's like they know there's a human psychology. Pricing is like a shortcut for us. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: We're all busy, and it's just like if you actually increase the price without reinvesting into the product, in some categories, it makes it more desirable. [00:00:00] S1: Right. [00:00:00] S0: And it actually increases the line and the demand for it. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: You're saying, "No, no, no. I'm not trying to maximize and do some kind of psychological trick." [00:00:00] S1: That's a bubble. What you just mentioned is- [00:00:00] S0: Well, it's very enduring in human nature, actually. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: But my point being is, it's like, but I don't want to just make money for the sake of making more money. If I'm going to charge more, I want them to get more value. Am I understanding what you're saying?
· David Senra, Ronnie Fieg
[00:00:00] S0: But my point being is, it's like, but I don't want to just make money for the sake of making more money. If I'm going to charge more, I want them to get more value. Am I understanding what you're saying? [00:00:00] S1: 100%. And I think the consistency of that thought process that I have has been why we've been able to grow at the rate that we've grown. Right? So, I think that the consumer has seen that year over year, and a lot of these kids that are, I won't even call them kids, these dads that are my age at 44, a lot of them have come up with a brand from when they were 30 or 29. My number one following age range is between 28 and 35, and then number two is 35 to 44. I feel like the growth that people have had for the last 15 years of consistently seeing the progress, they felt like they've been part of the journey, and we've gone so far with creating product that just it's actually mind-blowing when you look at the first collection versus the collection today. We didn't have any fucking clue what we were doing. [00:00:00] S0: You can see this in this book, right? [00:00:00] S1: This book is different because- [00:00:00] S0: It's just the footwear. [00:00:00] S1: ... the footwear is collaborative, and I had 15 years under my belt before working on this product. The first shoe was 15 years later in my career, where apparel, my first product was in 2012. So, when you think about that, that's 14 years ago, and looking at the progress there, there'll be a much bigger delta than in this book. [00:00:00] S0: Would you make another book just on apparel?
· David Senra, Ronnie Fieg
[00:00:00] S0: Would you make another book just on apparel? [00:00:00] S1: I thought about it for the 15 year, but after we were building the second floor of my office a few years ago, so we expanded. We have 60,000 feet on the third floor, and then I took another 30,000 feet for the design studio on the second floor. Before we started building, on the second floor, I knew I had six to eight months to design the space, so I knew I was going to have an empty space. We already took the space. So my archivist, his name is Jordan Bloom, I had him lay out all of my footwear from day one in chronological order. [00:00:00] S0: Is this the picture I just saw on Instagram? [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah, that's dope, man. [00:00:00] S1: And it's actually, it's in here. So, the first time- [00:00:00] S0: Yeah, that's incredible.
· Ronnie Fieg
[00:00:00] S1: ... the first time I got to see all of my work in one place was a few years ago when I saw this. And I actually did that because I've never seen it before, so I was just curious to see the progression myself. I wanted to see how far we've come in footwear, and it's impossible for you to see 1,800 different shoes by flipping through photos or organizing it in a way where you're going to see the progression. It has to be in person. There's no other way to do it. So when I saw it, two things happened. The first thing was, people need to see this. And then I was like, "People need to see it physically." We need to do this. So, the first idea was we need an exhibition for this product, which we're doing the end of this month. I showed you the index, and the index is all of my product that released, but more importantly, all of my unreleased product. And the unreleased product are samples that led to the release pair. So, there's 800 or so released pairs, and then there's another 1,000 or so unreleased pairs. So, I wanted to have them all in one space and basically have a show. It's called Walk the Index. So we're going to have a digital version of the index uploaded onto people's apps, like onto the Kith app, and you need the Kith app to walk in, so then you can look at it and really walk the index of the book, which I felt was really cool. And then people will obviously be able to buy the book there. And then for those four days that the show will be open for, we also have panels with each of the four biggest collaborators, which are Nike, Adidas, New Balance, and ASICS, and there's some senior leadership that are coming down for that. On top of the exhibition, Ronnie's will launch for the first time in New York via truck. And the truck that we built, it's a really special truck. It's going to feature what I'm calling the Ronnie's Meal. So there's two sandwiches that really blew up, one in London called the OG Burger, and then one in LA in West Hollywood called the Wagyu Pronto. And the Wagyu Pronto is a Wagyu pastrami sandwich, and then the burger is this Wagyu burger. It's incredible with our own sauce and kind of like this mix with sautéed onions, and it's just one of the best burgers I think you'll ever have.