Who is KidSuper, the label collaborating on Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection?

For its menswear fall/winter 2023-2024 show, Louis Vuitton promises the presence of a music superstar, as well as a set design made by artist Lina Kutsovskaya and French directors Michel and Olivier Gondry… And that’s not all! The fall/winter 2023-2024 show taking place on Thursday, January 19th, 2023, will feature a guest designer for the first time since the death of artistic director Virgil Abloh. Colm Dillane, the New York designer at the head of his label KidSuper, is the lucky one this year. While waiting for the Louis Vuitton collection, here are three things you need to know about Colm Dillane and his label KidSuper.

1. KidSuper, the label that already appeals to the stars

Pop star Dua Lipa, Brazilian footballer Neymar, producer Princess Nokia, Joey Badass, J. Balvin, or Bad Bunny… all have been quickly drawn to the multicolored and very New York aesthetics of KidSuper, whose name evokes the founder’s pseudonym back when he started his (short) career as a rapper. Mac Miller, who tragically died in 2018, remains one of the first one who wore Colm Dillane’s collections since the official launch of the label in 2018. A wardrobe that includes scathing patchworks reminiscent of the Big Apple in the nineties, the wilderness of the pop art king Andy Warhol, the fluorescent visuals of the underground filmmaker Harmony Korine and some illustrations of children’s tales printed on corduroy. As a teenager leaving in Wisconsin, the young man used to design screen-printed T-shirts that he would sell in his high school cafeteria, and later in the streets of Soho under the name Brick Oven T-Shirts (BOTS).

2. KidSuper’s fashion shows designed as spectacular shows

February 2020 is the date of Colm Dillane’s first show for KidSuper. To mark that occasion, he incorporated into the opening dress of the show the acceptance letter from the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion that he received a few months earlier. Colm Dillane finally joined the official Fashion Week calendar. Yet, in the middle of a pandemic, he eventually avoided the catwalk to focus on a digital show, like most of his counterparts. A way for him to present miniature dolls with Jennifer Lopez’s or painter Salvador Dali’s face… For his first real show at the Paris Fashion Week in June 2022, he staged a pastiche of the famous auction house Sotheby’s as a fashion show entitled “Superby’s”. Twenty-three of his own paintings, as well as twenty-three original looks with loose-fitting volumes and workwear references directly inspired by the works, were on display. The auction sale was far from being a scam and Colm Dillane raised more than $500,000, most of which he donated to foundations supporting young designers… His upcoming project for this fall/winter 2023-2024 Fashion Week: mixing fashion with stand-up comedy through a KidSuper show entitled “Funny Business” at the Casino de Paris. The legendary boxer Mike Tyson and the American comedians Jeff Ross and Stavros Halkias will also be participating in the event.

3. KidSuper won the Karl Lagerfeld Prize in 2021

September 2021. Today’s greatest designers gathered to select the winners of the 8th edition of the prestigious LVMH prize in the auditorium of the Louis Vuitton Foundation. Alongside Louis Vuitton’s deputy CEO Delphine Arnault, stood Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Kim Jones (Dior men and Fendi women), the late Virgil Abloh (Off-White and Louis Vuitton men), Jonathan Anderson, Sidney Toledano (chairman of the LVMH Fashion Group), and Jean-Paul Claverie, (advisor to Bernard Arnault and Director of Patronage at LVMH). French actress Isabelle Huppert announced the winners. As Albanian designer Nensi Dojaka was unanimously awarded the Grand Prix, the Jury’s Special Prize – renamed the Karl Lagerfeld Prize – was awarded to three different designers against all odds. Among them, the South African designer Lukhanyo Mdingi, the Chinese designer Rui Zhou and… Colm Dillane for his label KidSuper. Based in Brooklyn, the 29-year-old at the time seduced the jury with his maximalist creations adorned with his own figurative paintings and drawings. Like his peers, he received €150,000 and a year-long mentoring from the LVMH Group. Following Virgil Abloh’s death, the designer seems to provide cover as the new director, without being appointed as his official successor.