Colm Dillane, founder of KidSuper, is quickly becoming ‘AdultMarvelous.’ The New York native, who founded his brand while still in high school, is scaling up his design-centric business with the opening of a 10,000-square-foot headquarters that will house his first flagship retail store, an art gallery, design, and screen-printing studios, a photo studio, with a few unexpected additions to come.
Located at 158 Roebling Street in the heart of downtown Williamsburg, the space will function as a factory for other creatives to fulfill their projects and dreams, led by one of fashion’s unlikeliest players who broke the mold with his unconventional approach. FashionNetwork.com caught up with Dillane in advance of his opening night soiree, billed as a Brooklyn-style red-carpet gala with live salsa music and Manhattan-style tray service for refreshments.
Speaking by phone hours before the official event, Dillane was already inviting the public to experience the space, getting set up to teach a screen-printing class, troubleshooting electricity issues, and prepping a VIP shopping session while explaining how the new space came together.
“It was me saying this over and over to everyone: we are getting a building, we are doing classes, and finally, with the brand collaborations and success of KidSuper, I finally have the funds to do it,” Dillane said on a phone call, prefacing his multi-tasking with “it’s always crazy here.”
With the same New York tenacity that helped establish the brand concept when Dillane was just 16 years old, the eclectic creative found the space with good ol’ pounding-the-pavement chutzpah.
“It took me two years to find the space; I would just walk around and call numbers on for rent signs,” he recalled. Eventually, after seeing many super raw spaces, he came across a renovated space vacated by an ad agency. “I said I’d sign the lease that day,” Dillane recalled. It took another two years to get it open after that.
He describes it as a creative community center for likeminded artists who will be able to use the space for their creations, thanks in part to the lucrative brand partnerships such as Canada Goose, Jägermeister, Starbucks, LoveSac, and others (many of which are sponsoring the opening festivities) who have teamed up with Dillane to capture some of the Brooklyn ironic-cool of KidSuper.
Opening day festivities also included panels moderated by Willa Bennett of HighSnobiety with Dillane and MSCHF founder Gabe Whaley, a talk on art direction with Director X and Hidji, and another with rapper Russ and Joey Bada$$ moderated by Rob Markman of Genius, a lyrics platform.
Future additions planned are a rooftop soccer field (Dillane played in college and a youth pro league in Brazil) and a recording studio, which also existed in his original space on Broadway in Brooklyn.
Dillane owes the manifestation of this next level of business to his stint as a guest designer at Louis Vuitton for the men’s Fall/Winter 2023 collection a year ago in January, which indirectly helped grow wholesale accounts, especially in Europe, thanks to the association with the luxury brand.
“It didn’t go from overnight doing the Louis Vuitton show to the next day being in demand. It was on a trajectory, growing organically. Louis Vuitton helped my sales, but more importantly it changed the perspective of what I can do. As I worked with them, other brands assumed I could do anything. I went from the crazy creative kid from New York to Colm, the creative director,” he continued, noting it opened doors and made him more discerning in roles that appealed to him.
“Before, I would have been open to being the Walgreens creative director,” he joked, adding that the brand stays open to all opportunities if it can help sustain the other creative pursuits. At this stage, the KidSuper business is self-supporting the clothing line.
Even the idea of throwing a formal gala as an opening event reeks a bit of a maturing brand, though Dillane played it down.
“I was joking about the formal event, but then everyone took it seriously,” he explained. Thus far, it tracks as the hijinks fueling the budding enterprise.
Dillane has pondered whether the brand—which officially became a legal entity in 2018—can fully mature with its name.
“I was nervous about the name KidSuper being perceived as childish and only a streetwear line and hard to grow because of it. But now, after Louis Vuitton, it can be seen as a high-end brand. If Comme des Garçons is seen as the most successful high art brand and the name roughly translates to ‘clothes like boys,’ KidSuper is fine! Especially if you are foreign, you can add an accent to the E,” he rationed.
The Roebling Street headquarters puts an accent and more on KidSuper’s growth spurt.
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