Lisa Manobal is not your usual overachiever. She is now a fashion designer too

Possibly Blackpink’s most prodigiously multifaceted member, Lisa Manobal has added another key competence to her already burgeoning resume: fashion designer. Kith has just announced “the first collection designed by global artist, actress and style icon, Lalisa Manobal”. The omission of fashion designer in the accolades accorded to her is telling. Or is a “style icon” good enough? A title ‘awarded’ for wearing clothes memorably, shaping trends through persona, and being admired for taste is good enough to earn the tenuous mantle “design by” is like assuming that because you have an impeccable palate for tom yum goong, you are somehow qualified to run the kitchen. It’s amazing that we still equate wearing well with designing well. Clearly recognised these days is this modern alchemy of turning poses into prototypes by standing by a drafting table and looking iconic holding a pair of scissors. Behind that, a silent army making it all happen in CLO 3D.

The New York store-turned-fashion-brand provided more formation about the partnership: “Kith welcomes her as Guest Designer on a cohesive ready-to-wear assortment defined by two archetypes—titled ‘Hopeless Romantic’ and ‘After Dark’.” “Guest Designer” is a ceremonial title. It implies legitimacy, as if Lisa’s joining the ranks of designers already in the Kith stable. We can understand if she were the ‘guest narrator’, but to go beyond story telling into design territory is a leap of logic so vast it’s a wonder she didn’t pull a muscle—or at least a seam—on the way over. Well, she did not make the jump. According to founder of Kith, the highly-regarded shoe designer Ronnie Fieg, in an interview with Complex, Lisa was “Zooming in” for fittings while she was on her “Deadline” World Tour, which ended just weeks ago on January 26, 2026. The e-mag wrote that “the design process was collaborative”.

So the “designed by” badge of honour dies not entirely reflect what happened. Mr Fieg elaborated to Complex: “It’s not your typical ‘design and throw a name on it’. She was involved through the whole process—while she was on tour, while she was traveling, she was Zooming in, we did fittings with her, we ideated with her. The first round of samples was fit on her. So she was really involved in every detail along the way.” Detail-oriented is still not design-savvy, however they wing it. No matter how manifold the process was due to Lisa’s touring schedule, the reality is, they did throw a name on it. Remote involvement is not crafting now matter how communication technology may facilitate it. Being present for decisions doesn’t mean possessing the technical knowledge to make structural adjustments. And touring schedule is not studio time—she is not investing hours as a designer. At best, she is a fit model, with an opinion.

Sure, the design process can he different nowadays, especially if one were to work with celebrities who can’t sit down for an hour to assemble a mood board or even create a composite on a smartphone. But we cannot unsee in our head a celebrity standing in front of a ring light while anonymous technicians in New York make the actual structural refinements. Sure, Lisa Zooming in from tour stops, approving samples, ideating remotely is technically possible in today’s celebrity‑driven fashion economy, with parcel services offering incredibly short shipping times. In view of how real fashion works, it is, however, doubtful that Jonathan Anderson could (or would) direct Dior remotely from London since even ready-to-wear demands physical presence. It makes Lisa’s ‘remote ideating’ look like exactly what it is—high-end delegation. It’s her fame that allowed Kith to describe her involvement as “Design by Lisa”. We know it’s essentially powered by Wi‑Fi and executed by anonymous hands in a company with deep-pocketed logistics.

It is no longer marketable to use the letter ‘X’ between brand and name, as was once the common practice (who remembers Off-White X Nike now?). Lisa shows that you need to only use “design by”, claiming total ownership, whether you deserve it or not. And effectively kicking down the boundary of the studio. Kith is not the partner, but the sampling room. The old formula was a collaboration framed as a partnership, with the “X” marking the boundary between the house and the guest. That format implied co‑authorship: the brand still owned the craft, the celebrity lent the aura. But now, Lisa’ stage name (shortened from her given Lalisa) is the all-encompassing moniker that is the power brand. Kith, founded by Ronnie Fieg and built on his credibility as a real designer, is now playing the supporting role to Lisa’s celebrity. Kith is the stage and Lisa is the star, as she has been and must continue to be. “Guest designer” is a necessary euphemism for being totally alien to the thimble.

Pop stars stepping into fashion design are, of course, not a new breed. Rihanna created Fenty fashion with massive support from LVMH, including the group’s best technical heads, but the label did not last. It excited the market in 2021, barely two years after it was launched. Market excitement fizzled because the label lacked a clear, original design identity. Even the best technical heads in the world couldn’t fix a lack of a clear, original design identity. The most successful singer who became a designer is Victoria Beckham. Initially dismissed as a celebrity vanity project, Ms Beckham slowly earned respect through persistence, refinement, and a focus on clean tailoring. Her trajectory is the counterpoint to Lisa’s situation. Although both started in successful girl groups (the former in the Spice Girls), Ms Beckham had the added misfortune of being a football wife. The industry wanted her to fail. She had to over-correct by being ten times as serious, ten times as quiet, and twice as technically involved just to get a seat at the table. To survive, she had to be; she could not have depended on a Zoom fitting session.

For Lisa, her seat at the table was alteady choped. There is a glaring double standard in how the industry treats a woman who spent 20 years proving herself versus a star who is handed the title as a branding gift. The irony is that both paths are framed as “design,” but only one is actually rooted in it. Inherently unequal it is too. Victoria Beckham had to build the car from scratch to prove she could drive. Lisa is being given the keys to a Formula 1 racer (Kith’s technical team) and being told she’s the engineer. But the pieces “designed by” her suggest that she could not have dug deep, not especially when she was on tour. Some of her fans insisted that she “sourced” for the fabrics. Fabric sourcing is different from fabric selecting. We doubt that Lisa scoured the mills of Nonthaburi and the industrial hubs of Samut Sakhon for the nylon lace or the cotton fleece she needed. Even if she’s the one deciding that a specific lace feels “Hopeless Romantic”, she’s definitely not the one checking the thread count at the production floor.

The “designed by” accolade has become so elastic these days that you could probably stamp it on a toilet brush and call it a ‘curated lifestyle experience’, and there would be a huge demand for it. The Kith Women’s Designed by Lisa looks to us a synonym for “I like the swatch”. For a “Lily” (Lisa’s hardcore fan), the idea that she personally labored over the cotton fleece hoodie makes the garment a piece of her soul, not just a piece of merch. As with any streetwear-focused collection, there are also your usual leather jackets (Lisa can design with lambskin!), fitted tops, and body-con dresses that Kim Kardashian would no doubt rush out to buy, in support of the SKIMS model. Were the leotards borne of that experience? If we take Kith’s pitch literally, Lisa would need to be able to explain how the tension in the lace crochet balaclava was calculated to maintain its shape. But her fans won’t be impressed anyway. They don’t care if she has never seen a thimble or held a measuring tape in her life. The star only need to be. If the Victoria’s Secret was her show-as-launchpad, Kith is her encore. Stardom is doubtlessly a substitute for a portfolio.

Kith Women Designed by Lisa is available online at the Kith website. Photos and product images: Kith