Overview
KIDS LOVE GAITE is the Tokyo footwear label founded by Shintaro Yamamoto in 2008, after a career shaped equally by London subculture and Japanese shoe manufacturing. Yamamoto had moved to Britain in 1990, studied three-dimensional design at Camberwell College of Arts and worked formally at The Old Curiosity Shop from 1996, learning hand-lasting from the circle that carried forward John Moore’s footwear legacy. Returning to Japan in 2000, he spent the following years inside Asakusa’s shoemaking industry, working across factory production, OEM planning and sales before launching KIDS LOVE GAITE with its Autumn/Winter 2008 collection.
The label established its identity by rebuilding familiar British shoe types with altered proportion and Japanese production discipline. Double monks, saddle shoes, cap-toe brogues, derbies and boots acquired enlarged lasts, heavy crepe or rubber soles, split materials and unconventional hardware. In 2012 the range was formally divided into an experimental Conceptual Line, inaugurated by the asymmetric Two Face idea, and a more stable Classic Line. Collaboration became another design engine: Tricker’s, ILA./ELIMINATOR, SUB-AGE and CANNABIS preceded the tenth-anniversary K.L.G. meets FRIENDS network with Mountain Research, JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN, TAKEO KIKUCHI, BED J.W. FORD and ENALLOID. A second line, K.L.G. WHITE, began in Autumn/Winter 2022 and reached its full-scale debut in Spring/Summer 2023 with lighter, more everyday footwear.
In its second decade KIDS LOVE GAITE has become both an independent seasonal label and a specialist footwear partner for other designers. The recurring COMME des GARÇONS HOMME PLUS relationship began with the Spring/Summer 2024 show presented in June 2023 and continued through the completed Spring/Summer 2027 presentation, producing double-toe derbies, projecting soles, ruffled shoes, broken combat forms and double-layer uppers. Recent work also includes doublet, KIDILL, Undercover, The Viridi-anne and JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN. Faith Co., Ltd. operates the label from Sasazuka, while current production draws on Japanese specialist factories and craftspeople, including a documented Adachi-ku workshop. Asakusa remains fundamental to Yamamoto’s training and manufacturing outlook, though it is not established as the present production centre.
Philosophy
Yamamoto starts with the grammar of classic shoes and changes the conditions under which that grammar operates. A double monk can acquire a thick industrial sole and bone-shaped buckle; a brogue can carry an exaggerated welt or projecting midsole; a derby can split into two toes, grow a ruffle or appear to collapse upward. British formal footwear supplies recognisable types, while the London post-punk lineage around The Old Curiosity Shop gives him permission to distort them. The result keeps the authority of a traditional shoe even when its proportions become strange.
Construction is part of the visual argument. Goodyear welting has long been central to the label, joined across different seasons by crepe, Ridgeway and Vibram soles, hand-developed lasts, heavy bottoming and material combinations that expose the logic of assembly. Yamamoto’s current practice also uses cement construction where a model requires it, as the 26SS WALT demonstrates. This range of methods reflects the production system he learned in Asakusa: last making, upper stitching, lasting and sole work can be distributed among specialist craftspeople, while Yamamoto remains closely involved in prototype form, rough lasts, material choice and the final character of the shoe.
Collaboration tests how that system responds to another designer’s problem. Rei Kawakubo’s first Homme Plus brief asked for a leather shoe that looked implausible but remained functional, leading through conversation to the double-foot construction of SS24. Other partners have brought military garments, punk styling, inflatable structures, hand stencils, heritage Northampton manufacture or sharply tailored contexts into the workshop. Yamamoto does not impose one signature device on every project; he uses lasting, leather, sole engineering and proportion as a flexible vocabulary capable of absorbing another collection’s logic without losing the physical weight and wit that identify KIDS LOVE GAITE.
Timeline
Disclaimer
Creative timeline
Button TextFor K.L.G. meets FRIENDS, KIDS LOVE GAITE worked with TAKEO KIKUCHI on hybrid formal footwear that pushed classic tailoring shapes through heavier KIDS LOVE GAITE proportion and welt details. The project made the tenth anniversary a network of distinct co-authored objects instead of a single commemorative product.
For K.L.G. meets FRIENDS, KIDS LOVE GAITE worked with JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN on tailored footwear and python-print leather accessories that connected Yamamoto’s formal lasts with Arashi Yanagawa’s sharp menswear. The project made the tenth anniversary a network of distinct co-authored objects instead of a single commemorative product.
For K.L.G. meets FRIENDS, KIDS LOVE GAITE worked with Mountain Research on a nine-hole horsehide boot that reworked the Two Face split with smooth and roughout leather, distressing and laser-etched branding. The project made the tenth anniversary a network of distinct co-authored objects instead of a single commemorative product.
The Style Co. alignment expanded KIDS LOVE GAITE’s commercial infrastructure and brought Yamamoto additional OEM and consulting work. The arrangement gave the footwear label broader showroom and wholesale capacity without transferring its design direction away from Yamamoto. Its later endpoint is not used to define the current company structure, which is now represented by Faith Co., Ltd.
Yamamoto’s years with Asakusa factories, DECORTE and Magnum exposed him to the industrial side of shoes: factory-floor supervision, pattern and last coordination, OEM work and commercial sales. This experience supplied the production knowledge needed to build an independent label around technically demanding footwear.
The Old Curiosity Shop connected Yamamoto to the design lineage of John Moore and the House of Beauty and Culture. Working with Daita Kimura and Ian Reid, he learned hand-lasting on inherited wooden forms and used materials such as mail sacks, billiard felt and industrial canvas in bench-made shoes.
KIDS LOVE GAITE divisions and related structures
The label has used separate lines to balance experimental footwear with permanent or more accessible product. Historical line names are kept distinct from the current K.L.G. WHITE structure.
Current second line
- K.L.G. WHITE
- Second footwear line, initiated Autumn/Winter 2022; full-scale debut Spring/Summer 2023
- Developed for more everyday use and a lower price level, K.L.G. WHITE began with a JOURNAL STANDARD officer-shoe collaboration and expanded into a continuing secondary footwear line under Yamamoto’s direction.
Historical line architecture
- Conceptual Line
- Experimental line formalised for Autumn/Winter 2012
- Introduced with the Two Face concept, this line concentrated asymmetry, split materials, altered lasts and higher-risk seasonal ideas within the main KIDS LOVE GAITE system.
- Classic Line
- Core line formalised alongside the Conceptual Line in Autumn/Winter 2012
- Repeated established silhouettes such as double monks and cap-toe brogues in dependable materials and colourways, providing continuity alongside the experimental seasonal work.
KIDS LOVE GAITE collaborations
Collaboration has been a sustained part of KIDS LOVE GAITE since its first decade, ranging from heritage shoemaking and retailer special-makes to recurring footwear work for Paris runway collections.
Early footwear and retail projects
- The Viridi-anne
- Footwear experimentation from 2004; collaborative boot revisited for Autumn/Winter 2025
- Yamamoto and Tomoaki Okaniwa experimented with an in-heel boot construction before KIDS LOVE GAITE was founded. The relationship resurfaced two decades later in a Japan-made collaboration boot based on the early model.
- Tricker’s
- Two-Tone Derby Boot, Autumn/Winter 2012
- A Northampton-made cap-toe derby boot combined Tricker’s bench-made Goodyear construction with contrasting Gaucho Repello suede and KIDS LOVE GAITE’s colour blocking.
- ILA. / ELIMINATOR
- Stencil-art footwear project, 2012
- Formal leather uppers became surfaces for hand-applied stencil graphics in a Daikanyama retail project that connected classic shoemaking with art-led customisation.
- SUB-AGE
- Co-branded footwear, mid-2010s
- The labels developed creepers, loafers and dress shoes with enlarged soles and strongly brogued or subcultural proportions.
- CANNABIS
- Retailer special-makes and exclusives, c. 2014–18
- Recurring CANNABIS projects included a narrow-last side-gore boot and the 2018 Flex Double Monk, whose lighter internal welt construction changed the feel of Yamamoto’s normally substantial formal footwear.
Tenth-anniversary network
- Mountain Research
- K.L.G. meets FRIENDS, Spring/Summer 2018
- Setsumasa Kobayashi and Yamamoto developed a nine-hole horsehide boot from the Two Face split-material idea, adding distressed smooth and roughout surfaces and laser-etched branding.
- JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN
- Anniversary collaboration in 2018; renewed footwear work for Autumn/Winter 2026
- The relationship first joined Arashi Yanagawa’s sharp tailoring to KIDS LOVE GAITE footwear and python-print accessories, then returned with long combat boots for the 2026–27 collection using Tempesti leather and Vibram soles.
- TAKEO KIKUCHI
- K.L.G. meets FRIENDS, Spring/Summer 2018
- The anniversary project reworked tailored footwear through KIDS LOVE GAITE’s heavier proportions and welt details.
- BED J.W. FORD
- K.L.G. meets FRIENDS, Spring/Summer 2018
- Avant-garde tailoring was paired with sharpened lasts and altered instep geometry in one branch of the anniversary collaboration matrix.
- ENALLOID
- K.L.G. meets FRIENDS, Spring/Summer 2018
- The eyewear maker extended the anniversary project beyond shoes through custom acetate frames linked to the collection’s palette.
2020s product and line collaborations
- Clarks Originals
- Desert Boot and Desert Trek, Autumn/Winter 2020
- KIDS LOVE GAITE reworked two Clarks Originals staples within an AW20 collection informed by Mod culture, connecting British casual footwear history to Yamamoto’s own London-derived vocabulary.
- PASCAL MARIE DESMARAIS
- Limited sustainable tassel loafer, 2022
- A domestically sewn limited loafer was released through Shibuya Parco and online as a focused material and retail collaboration.
- JOURNAL STANDARD
- First documented K.L.G. WHITE collaboration, Autumn/Winter 2022
- An officer shoe in recycled leather introduced the new second line publicly before its full-scale Spring/Summer 2023 debut.
- TAKAHIROMIYASHITATheSoloist.
- Past collaborative footwear
- Earlier chukka projects form part of Yamamoto’s wider designer-client history and prefigure the runway-focused external footwear work that expanded in the 2020s.
Recurring runway and collection footwear
- COMME des GARÇONS HOMME PLUS
- Recurring footwear collaboration, SS24–at least SS27
- Beginning with Rei Kawakubo’s SS24 Beyond Reality brief, the relationship has produced double-foot derbies, projecting brogues, ruffled shoes, broken combat footwear and double-layer uppers across Paris presentations and commercial releases.
- doublet
- Runway and commercial footwear, FW25–AW26
- Handmade zip-mouth derbies for FW25 were followed by the inflatable leather derby of doublet’s AW26 AIR collection.
- KIDILL
- Runway footwear collaboration, Autumn/Winter 2026
- Studded KIDS LOVE GAITE shoes entered Hiroaki Sueyasu’s HEAVEN collection, extending Yamamoto’s role as a specialist footwear collaborator in Paris menswear.
- Undercover
- Pre-Fall 2026 menswear footwear
- Steel-capped KIDS LOVE GAITE derbies accompanied the menswear looks, bringing Yamamoto’s formal shoe construction into Jun Takahashi’s pre-fall collection.
