Ronnie Fieg doesn’t profess to be an angler — but that didn’t stop the Kith founder from making a fishing-inspired collection for his next collaboration.

On Friday, Kith and Columbia Sportswear will unveil a co-branded line of apparel, footwear and accessories inspired by Columbia’s PFG collection. PFG, which stands for Performance Fishing Gear, has produced the outdoor-focused line of performance products for a long time but that is the primary time it has partnered with Kith.

“They make the very best fishing gear on the planet,” Fieg said of Columbia.

Through the years, Kith and Columbia have collaborated six other times, he said, but at all times on the core collection. This latest project got here about due to Mikol Staumbaugh, Kith’s vp of product, who’s an avid fisherman. “He convinced me to work on a fishing collection,” Fieg said.

Although he’d quite toss a baseball than throw in a line, Fieg began to do his research. When he was talking to his colleagues in Japan — Kith has a flagship in Tokyo — they showed him fishing gear that was fashionable in that country, and a lightbulb went off. “I began to have a look at different apparel pieces and I actually liked what I saw,” he said. “I believed it transcended into fashion a bit, which made me very interested.”

With that as a backdrop, Fieg approached Columbia and began a conversation. “They were very interested because fishing is a large category for them — they lead within the marketplace, which is incredible,” he said.

He started off as he would with any project, using the PFG DNA as an anchor after which evolving the pieces from there. “We found some incredible styles that we thought our spin could really twist,” he said.

He was careful to make sure the performance points of the road can be retained, however the line features “our colorways, suits and designs,” he said. “It ended up being a principally whole latest view on what our interpretation of fishing looks like.”

Key pieces include the Cool Creek Vest, created from a breathable mesh with self-draining zip pockets; the Madison Jacket, one among PFG’s core pieces reimagined in Columbia’s proprietary Omni-Tech waterproof breathable lightweight material; the Bib Pant, which also features Omni-Tech and an adjustable Y-harness suspender system; the Terminal Deflector Long Sleeve, which now features allover Kith logos in an ombré color, and a Quarter Zip with matching shorts in cotton fleece that showcases artwork of sunset on a lake.

The gathering is obtainable within the seasonal Kith color palette of earth tones intended to mimic the natural environment.

Along with the apparel, the gathering includes fishing-related accessories equivalent to the Backcast Cachalot, a sun protection hat, a fingerless Terminal Tackle Glove and a Transit Bag with an adjustable strap, pockets and a big major compartment.

Footwear is a component of the gathering for the primary time, Fieg said. The shoe offering encompasses two styles, the Newton Ridge waterproof boot and the Breaksider Sandal. Fieg described the Newton Ridge as “like ‘90s heritage mountain climbing boots, which I really like,” and the Breaksider as a “water sandal.”

Fieg tapped Oakley to product two sunglass models — the Frogskins and the M2 Frame XL — as a part of the drop. Fieg said the lenses on the sunglasses are designed to permit fishermen to raised see through the water and guard against sun glare. Each model is laser-etched with Kith branding on the corner of the lens.

“I feel prefer it’s a really well-rounded collection,” he said. “They make the performance stuff, and we produce the approach to life stuff.”

Fieg, who was on the Ocean Club in Nassau within the Bahamas to shoot the campaign video featuring Staumbaugh along along with his brother and father, admitted that although he’s happy with the gathering, it hasn’t convinced him to take up the game of fishing.

“I got here here three days ago because I used to be going to be on the boat for the campaign, however the water was too rough. And my Jewish self just isn’t good on boats,” he said with fun. “But I used to be communicating with them throughout and we got some really beautiful shots.”

Fieg’s alternative to remain on terra firma allows him more time to plot his expansion. On March 24, Kith opened its latest store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That follows a flagship on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles that debuted in January in addition to a unit in Miami’s Design District that opened in February. All told, this brings Kith as much as 12 flagships in addition to three shop-in-shops world wide.

Because the brand continues to expand its retail footprint in addition to its variety of collaborations — Kith recently partnered with Adidas Originals and Clarks on a latest footwear silhouette and has worked with brands as varied as Levi’s and Versace to BMW — he’s not nervous about being overexposed.

“That’s probably not something that I’m being attentive to,” he said. Fieg said that within the 12 years since Kith was founded, the corporate has grown “organically,” and “the formula hasn’t modified within the sense of what number of projects we work on throughout the 12 months. We don’t overpopulate the calendar.”

He said that since the brand just isn’t wholesaled, its distribution is intentionally limited to its own stores or e-commerce site in order that also cuts down on the probabilities of mass distribution.

And so far as retail rollout, he doesn’t consider Kith has been overly aggressive on that end either. “I even have at all times only heard about cities that basically want us to open,” he said. “A store a 12 months on average just isn’t a variety of growth so I’m not nervous about overexposure. If anything, I feel we’re underserving the demand — not in a purposeful way, but because the product gets higher, we see more people buy into it and hopefully we get a consumer for all times once they experience the products. So I feel like we’ve just scratched the surface.”

Asked what number of stores he could envision Kith operating, and where, he said: “I don’t have the reply to that. I believe that strategically it’s just been organic and we’ve opened within the cities that I frequent that I believe need a Kith store. So we’ve some plans for expansion, but there’s not a set number, and I’m not looking to actually change the pace of what we’ve been doing.”

Fieg had the identical answer as to if he would ever consider selling his brand to a bigger company equivalent to Supreme did to VF Corp.

“That’s not something that I’m serious about in the mean time,” he said before changing the topic back to the Columbia collab.

The Kith for Columbia fishing collection will launch in any respect Kith stores, at 11 a.m. EST on the Kith website and at 11 CET on the Kith European website and on the app.