Kith, adidas Football, and Lionel Messi release their collaborative collection on Friday, May 29 at Kith.com, the Kith app, and all Kith flagship stores in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, with online drops staggered to 11 a.m. local time across regions. The capsule is anchored on two anniversaries: 20 years since Messi wore the No. 19 at his first FIFA World Cup in 2006, and Kith's 15th year as a brand. Ronnie Fieg and Messi met multiple times across the past year to shape the assortment, which is the largest football-focused project Kith has produced and the first time the shop has built a head-to-toe wardrobe around a single athlete.
On-Pitch Product
Four commemorative jerseys lead the on-pitch lineup — two carrying Messi's original No. 19 from 2006, two carrying the No. 10 he settled into for the rest of his career. All-over-printed long-sleeve goalkeeper jerseys, goalkeeper gloves, matching shorts, tracksuits, nylon warm-up pullovers, socks, a ball bag, and two sizes of co-branded footballs round out the kit-bag drop. The footwear is built on four adidas football silhouettes — the COPA Mundial 17 UltraBOOST, the F50 Megaride, and the F50 Walkable Cleat, plus two premium-suede Handball Spezial colorways and a deconstructed Superstar that crosses into lifestyle. The F50 references explicitly cite the cleats Messi wore in Germany in 2006.
Off-Pitch Wardrobe
The lifestyle side is where the collection becomes a Kith project rather than a kit drop. A double-breasted suit, a short-sleeve crossover blazer with matching suit shorts, a washed denim jacket-and-shorts set, a knit polo, wool tracksuits, and a leather duffle bag turn the Messi tribute into the type of curated wardrobe Kith built around LeBron in 2024 and Roger Federer earlier this year. This is the front-of-house argument that Kith is using football culture — five weeks before the 2026 men's World Cup opens in North America — to plant a flag in the year's biggest sports moment.
The Timing
The Messi drop lands four days after Nike's Tercer Tiempo F.C. and Amor and Furia lifestyle launches. The two largest sportswear brands in the world are spending the same week converting football culture into lifestyle product — adidas via Kith and its biggest individual athlete, Nike via in-house collections built around aesthetics rather than a single face. Resale forecasts on StockX have the COPA Mundial 17 UltraBOOST and F50 Megaride sitting between $250 and $400 over retail across the first week. The lifestyle pieces are where the volume will live; the jerseys are where the sell-through will be measured.
Source: Hypebeast · Kith · SneakerNews
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