Several know that when any type of news regarding A-list celebrity Ye (formally known as Kanye West) drops, it causes Internet culture to focus the spotlight on him. Recently, West has added a new topic to his list of abrupt lifestyle changes. As of September, he announced that he will completely terminate his affiliations with the Gap brand and Adidas after his contracts with them expire in 2026 and 2030. 

Ye’s affiliations with Gap and Yeezy helped orchestrate the millions of sales that these brands receive. In fact, almost 8% of Adidas revenue comes from Yeezy sales and about 191 million from 2020 alone. Without Ye’s partnership with the company, Adidas will most likely lose sales and revenue in a matter of months. On September 23, Ye offered Adidas 20% of Yeezy sales and no ownership of his brand as a non-exclusive manufacturer and distribution to the partner. 

 Ye first began ranting on social media about the Adidas brand in early September. When he dropped the Yeezy Boost 750s in 2015, Adidas later released the Tubular Invader in 2016. Recently, he accused the company of stealing one of his most popular shoe designs, the Adidas Yeezy slides and dropping the Adidas Adilette slides. The Adilette slides look almost identical in shape and color to the Yeezy slides and only the texture of the shoe differentiates the two. In addition to allegedly stealing Ye’s designs, Adidas even took to extremes by creating a worldwide Yeezy Day in which the company restocks all Yeezy apparel and sells it at retail price. Ye later announced that he never agreed to the holiday and Adidas never reached out to him regarding it at all.

“I think it would be selfish of him to up the prices, especially because the products are already expensive. I’ve actually been putting off buying the Yeezy foam runners and now I feel like I need to go run and get them before he does anything. I think it is very important to think about the customers but of course, at the end of the day all anyone cares about is just making money,” senior Laila Odom said. 

The situation with Ye and Gap shows a slight difference compared to his situation with Adidas. The Yeezy Gap collaboration offers a plethora of items, including jackets, pants, hoodies, bags, graphic tees, hats and even keychains. However, Gap constantly fails to follow through with Ye’s plans for the collaboration. At the establishment of the partnership, Ye and his team expressed the need for Gap to make the Yeezy Gap products available in stores. As of right now, Gap has failed to do so. He also emphasized the need to make Yeezy Gap products 20 dollars. However, the majority of the products on the Yeezy Gap site exceed 40 dollars. Similar to the issue of Adidas stealing Ye’s Yeezy shoe designs, he recently shared a picture of a black Gap logo T-shirt for kids. He accused Gap of copying his work from Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga, and also said the company allegedly canceled a Yeezy Gap photoshoot with his own kids without him knowing. 

“Everyone knows that I’m the leader, I’m the king…A king can’t live in someone else’s castle. A king has to make his own castle,” Ye said. 

It seems that Ye continues to fail when it comes to collaborations with major retail companies. Whether Ye or the company holds the blame for the partnerships gone wrong, he still makes over 180 million a year and can easily live a successful life without other establishments. As of now, the internet patiently awaits his next social media outburst.