An overflow crowd turned out at Rizzoli’s Monday night for an in-depth exploration about “creativity, curiosity and the making of KidSuper.”
Initially billed as a conversation between KidSuper founder and designer Colm Dillane and an arts writer, the designer instead took the stage alone and amused the crowd with stories and excerpts from his recently published book, “The Misadventures of KidSuper.” The book is an illustrated autobiography that traces Dillane’s beginnings selling T-shirts in high school to his popular fashion shows in New York and Paris.
The crowd wasn’t fazed by Dillane being alone on stage and laughed often at his expletive-laced recollections on his career path. “I’ve learned through trial and error,” he said, adding: “My path was kind of determined by what worked and what didn’t work.”
The designer said that because he moved so often as a child — seven times between the ages of 3 and 12 — he didn’t have any friends when his family settled in New York and he entered high school. To change that, he started making T-shirts along with some other creative types he met in his school.
“I was always trying to build this New York world where artists, musicians, scientists were all friends. And clothing became the catalyst. That was my initial obsession with fashion.”
After high school, Dillane took a gap year to move to Brazil to play soccer before entering New York University. While he acknowledged he wasn’t good enough to make a living at the sport, he learned an important life lesson.
“When I was in Brazil, a lot of the players would ask me why I was there. Their plan A was to make it in soccer, move to New York and go to college. And it really hit me hard that my plan B was their plan A. So when I came back, I was incredibly motivated.”
Dillane enrolled at NYU studying mathematics, but on the side, he was developing KidSuper. He ultimately got “kicked out” of his dorm for turning it into a store to sell his collection, but wound up taking a space in Brooklyn where he lived and sold his new line.
Problem was, no one shopped there. So he pivoted and turned it into a creative space with a recording studio, a photo studio — and a sewing machine. And he was on his way.
Dillane ultimately graduated with that degree in math, which has turned out to be handy for the business end of his company, he said. “When I do my brand deals, and I come in looking like this and talking like this, they’re like, ‘Wow, this kid’s an idiot. We’ll never give him money.’ And then someone will whisper: ‘He’s got a math degree from NYU.’ And they completely switch. So that’s pretty cool.”
Once he graduated, he focused full-time on KidSuper and in 2019, he started exploring the idea of holding a fashion show in Paris. Dillane read the first chapter of the book, “Bull in a China Shop,” that detailed the trials and tribulations of pulling off that first off-calendar show, including finding a location that was over his budget, creating 30 looks and talking his parents into walking on the runway to open the show.
His public relations team managed to get a Vogue editor to attend and write a review that was titled: “KidSuper Is the Breakout Surprise of Men’s Paris Fashion Week,” Dillane said. And he thought he was ready for the big time.
But it didn’t happen.
“My life changed zero,” he said. “I was so unknown that an article didn’t matter.”
Even so, Dillane persevered and continued to work on becoming known. And today, KidSuper is a regular on the Paris Fashion Week schedule and Dillane has partnered with everyone from Puma and Tommy Hilfiger to Mattel and Bape, and he also served as a guest designer for Louis Vuitton menswear.
Dillane told his fans at Rizzoli that they too can break through if they just keep trying, despite the challenges they’re bound to face. “You have to keep going and keep your head down,” he said. “I always had that mentality of never quitting, even back when I was at NYU studying math and running my brand. I didn’t change my major or drop out. If I start something, I see it through.”