Jerry Seinfeld Is the New Face of Kith. The Reactions Are ... Complicated.

Kith loves putting a celebrity of a certain age in its campaigns. Just look to earlier this year, when the clothing brand dropped no less of an icon than Steve Buscemi into the spring 2022 campaign. Or look further back, to the days when Ray Liotta was the face of the partnership between Kith and Bergdorf Goodman. Seeing these sorts of guys–graying, weathered juggernauts of the entertainment industry—getting dressed up in bucket hats and floral overshirts and velour tracksuits is just fun, for one thing, and also lends a little gravitas to a brand deeply rooted in streetwear, which is often considered the province of the young.

So, what should we have expected from the fall 2022 campaign, which was unveiled on Tuesday? A big name with a little salt-and-pepper around the temples was never a bad guess. But seeing Jerry Seinfeld—photographed by the legendary Mark Seliger—in a Mets cap and a Kith letterman jacket still came as a bit of a shock.

It probably shouldn't have. As we've argued on this very website before, Seinfeld is more of a style setter than he often gets credit for, and the menswear lexicon established by him and the rest of the cast of the sitcom that bore his name is still very much a part of the modern landscape. But there's something different about seeing our man dressed in slim sweats, paisley button-ups, ornate outerwear, and jacquard jeans. In fact, some commenters online would argue that it's less "different" and more "bad."

Maybe it's that Seinfeld has a little less of the self-aware, bizarro character-actor energy that Buscemi brings to the table. Or maybe the styling is missing that "playing to type with an almost-invisible wink" approach that Kith and Liotta brought to bear with all those stereotypically mobster-ish tracksuits; it would be nice to see Seinfeld in some looser jeans and some more subdued styles harking back to the NBC days.

But still, man, it's Jerry Seinfeld in some dope clothes lounging about and doing his thing. On the day after Labor Day, with the extended gray of fall and winter looming just over the horizon, it's a bright spot—but it could have been brighter. Just imagine if Kith had done a puffy shirt this season.

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