Introduction
Colm Dillane is an American fashion designer, artist and creative director born in New York City in 1991. He spent part of his childhood in Beloit, Wisconsin before returning to New York, where football, drawing and streetwear became parallel interests. Dillane graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 2009, then spent roughly six months training with the youth programme of Esporte Clube Vitória in Salvador, Brazil. He returned to study mathematics at New York University, where he also played football and developed the clothing project that became KidSuper; his documented higher education was in mathematics at NYU rather than fashion training at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Dillane’s fashion practice developed through direct experimentation rather than apprenticeship. After an unsuccessful 2010 World Cup T-shirt, he built a KidSuper website, sold clothing from his NYU dormitory and opened a mixed-use storefront at 354 Broadway in Williamsburg in 2013. The shop combined apparel, screen-printing, exhibitions, recording and events and established the multidisciplinary model that later scaled into Paris. KidSuper staged off-calendar shows in 2019 and early 2020 before joining the official Paris menswear calendar with the Spring/Summer 2021 stop-motion collection. Dillane received the shared Karl Lagerfeld Prize at the 2021 LVMH Prize and subsequently turned the brand’s pandemic filmmaking into physical shows built around auctions, comedy, theatre and installation.
In January 2023 Dillane worked as a guest designer embedded with the Louis Vuitton men’s studio for its Autumn/Winter 2023 collection, a one-season role distinct from his continued direction of KidSuper. He opened KidSuper World at 158 Roebling Street in Williamsburg in February 2024, consolidating the label’s retail, design, art, screen-printing, photography, recording and community functions in a single headquarters. The studio has since added KidSuper Records and a rooftop football field while maintaining a Paris-led seasonal calendar, with the Spring/Summer 2027 Resenha show temporarily relocating to Miami during the 2026 World Cup. Dillane remains KidSuper’s founder and principal creative author.
Design ethos
Dillane designs by moving the same idea through several media. His paintings and drawings supply faces, figures and narrative scenes that can become printed cloth, embroidery, jacquard, patchwork, animation or stage imagery. The clothing balances that graphic density with familiar forms—suits, tracksuits, denim, outerwear and sportswear—whose proportions and surfaces are pushed far enough to carry the artwork without becoming costume. Colour and humour are central, but so is the practical question of how an image changes when it wraps around a moving body.
The show format is part of that process. During the pandemic Dillane made miniature stop-motion clothes and live-action films because the digital presentation itself was the collection’s public form. When physical shows returned, he retained the same narrative logic: garments were sold as art lots, worn by stand-up comedians, built around the needs of a stage play, moved through an air-vortex installation or presented inside giant storybooks. These formats create design problems that feed back into the clothes, making performance a method of authorship rather than a promotional shell.
KidSuper’s studio culture gives the work its social scale. Dillane has repeatedly placed fashion beside music, painting, film and football, first at 354 Broadway and later at KidSuper World. Partnerships are strongest when they introduce a new technical system: PUMA brings footwear and sport, Canada Goose performance outerwear, Stuart Weitzman women’s shoes, BAPE sneaker culture and Cirque du Soleil live performance. Dillane’s role is to absorb those systems into a recognisable visual language while keeping collaboration visibly separate from the founder-led authorship of KidSuper’s main collections.
Disclaimer
Career history
2025
Rizzoli published The Misadventures of KidSuper on 21 October 2025, a 240-page visual autobiography and design chronicle authored by Dillane. The book consolidates the brand’s fashion, art, performance and studio history without establishing a separate KidSuper publishing imprint.
2025
The rooftop football field above KidSuper World was completed and publicly launched in 2025, extending Dillane’s long-standing football practice into the headquarters. The pitch is used for matches, brand activations and community programming and has been supported by recurring partners including PUMA.
2025
BAPE entered KidSuper’s Autumn/Winter 2025 collection through an extensive apparel and footwear capsule and returned around Spring/Summer 2027 with 48 Bapesta versions tied to the show’s international concept. The recurrence established a multi-season product relationship.
2024
KidSuper Records launched in October 2024 as a named music imprint, with Big In Da Game by KidSuper, Giggs and Quavo as its first confirmed commercial release. The division formalised music activity already embedded in KidSuper’s Brooklyn studio culture.
2024
KidSuper and Cirque du Soleil collaborated on the Spring/Summer 2025 presentation at Le Trianon in Paris, combining a co-branded capsule with live circus performance. The project used performance as an integrated seasonal design framework rather than a standalone entertainment booking.
2024
KidSuper World opened to the public at 158 Roebling Street in Williamsburg on 10 February 2024. The approximately 10,000-square-foot complex consolidated flagship retail, offices, alterations, screen-printing, art and photography studios, gallery, recording facilities and community/event functions under one roof.
2024
KidSuper developed an adventure-focused Canada Goose capsule tied to NBA All-Star 2024, translating Dillane’s artwork into technical outerwear. Canada Goose pieces also appeared in KidSuper’s Autumn/Winter 2024 runway and around the opening of KidSuper World.
2023
Jameson became a recurring KidSuper commercial partner around the development and opening of KidSuper World, later supporting rooftop football activity and appearing in an Autumn/Winter 2026 product capsule. The relationship spans event support and fashion product rather than a separate KidSuper division.
2023
Stuart Weitzman and KidSuper released a limited women’s footwear capsule in February 2023. Dillane extended the project into filmmaking through The Shoe-In, a short promotional film starring Mariska Hargitay.
2023
Colm Dillane joined the Louis Vuitton men’s studio as guest designer for the house’s Autumn/Winter 2023 collection, presented on 19 January 2023. His contribution was embedded within the existing studio and did not constitute an appointment as permanent artistic director.
2022
KidSuper returned to a physical official-calendar format in June 2022 and began a sequence of shows built around live performance rather than a conventional linear catwalk. Art auction, stand-up comedy and theatre translated the narrative techniques of the pandemic films into physical Paris productions.
2021
Colm Dillane received the Karl Lagerfeld Prize at the 2021 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, sharing the distinction with Lukhanyo Mdingi and Rui Zhou. The award brought a €150,000 endowment and a year of LVMH mentorship at a point when KidSuper was moving from digital breakthrough toward larger physical infrastructure.
2020
From Spring/Summer 2021 through Autumn/Winter 2022, KidSuper used stop-motion, short-form narrative and documentary filmmaking as primary collection formats. The cycle ended as the brand returned to a physical official-calendar presentation in June 2022.
2020
After multiple unsuccessful applications, KidSuper joined the official Paris menswear calendar with Spring/Summer 2021, presented digitally on 12 July 2020. The stop-motion film Everything’s Fake Until It’s Real converted calendar acceptance and pandemic restrictions into the subject and format of the collection.
2019
KidSuper introduced its relationship with PUMA around the Spring/Summer 2020 Paris show and expanded it into the KING SUPER football collection in 2020. The partnership continued through football, footwear, basketball, animation, studio-field projects and World Cup-linked product into 2026.
2019
KidSuper entered the Paris menswear circuit independently with the Spring/Summer 2020 runway at Cirque d’Hiver Bouglione on 20 June 2019, after repeated rejection from the official calendar. A second off-calendar show followed in January 2020 before formal FHCM acceptance.
2016
KidSuper released a Beast Coast collaboration T-shirt in 2016, connecting the label to the Brooklyn hip-hop network around Pro Era, Flatbush Zombies and The Underachievers. The project belongs to the pre-Paris period when the Williamsburg studio’s music community and clothing output regularly overlapped.
2013
Dillane opened the first permanent KidSuper Studios space at 354 Broadway in Williamsburg in summer 2013. Retail, screen-printing and apparel production shared the building with exhibitions, music recording, performances and living space, establishing the multidisciplinary studio model that continued into later KidSuper headquarters.
2010
Colm Dillane has remained KidSuper’s principal creative author from its early independent period through its current Paris Fashion Week practice. He directs the clothing alongside the paintings, films, performance concepts and studio projects that shape the label’s image.
2010
Colm Dillane began the independent clothing practice that developed into KidSuper in New York in 2010, after the end of his high-school BOTS venture. The early project moved through street sales, a first website and dorm-room retail before taking permanent studio space in Williamsburg.
You’re in
When the archive opens, you’ll be among the first to know.
That’s all.
