On the resale market, many Yeezy silhouettes appear to continue selling at prices above retail. The fact that this demand had persisted even after Ye’s controversial comments presented Adidas with another problem to consider when deciding what to do with its leftover inventory. Limited runs and a robust direct-to-consumer business model, meanwhile, helped stoke the demand. ![]() When asked about the situation, Adidas spokesperson Stefan Pursche confirmed to GQ that Adidas had been in contact with Ye to discuss “releasing the products prior to this announcement,” emphasizing that it had been “an Adidas decision.”įor the entirety of his design career with Adidas-and similarly with his partnership with Gap, which ended in September 2022-Ye was able to make products that seemingly no other brand could. Yeezy Boosts and Foam Runner sneakers were a reinvention of the form that offered consumers something no other brand was selling. ![]() But the question of what to do with the remaining Yeezy inventory still needed a resolution. headquarters in Portland, Oregon, there were employees who would be unsurprised to hear Gulden had used the present tense “falling apart” to describe a partnership that had officially ended months earlier. Meanwhile, at the Yeezy office in Los Angeles, and at Adidas’s U.S. Then there was the matter of its ugly, drawn-out split from Ye, whose Yeezy products accounted for an estimated eight percent of Adidas's total revenue and more than 40 percent of its profits, according to a Morgan Stanley analyst cited by Bloomberg in November 2022. In a July 2022 press release, Adidas said it expected its China profits to “decline at a double digit rate” that year due to COVID-19 related restrictions that strangled ordinarily robust demand in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing. The company suspended its business in Russia soon after the start of the war in Ukraine. In January, when Bjørn Gulden took over as CEO of Adidas, things were not looking good for the world’s second-largest sportswear brand. At least one new style has been offered through the app this morning, while others have fresh countdown clocks indicating a re-stock will be offered tomorrow. The direct-to-consumer mega-drop featured no less than four different colorways for the Yeezy 350 v2, one or more each for the 380, 450, 500, 700 v1, 700 v2, plus Yeezy foam runners and slides. After dropping the first few styles and colorways around 5 am EST, Adidas continued to roll out fresh silhouettes and colorways throughout the day. If the odds have improved for Yeezy fans, however, it probably has less to do with supposed cancel culture than with the generous supply on offer. A few even thanked those who had “canceled” Ye for making it easier to cop a pair of Yeezys. ![]() “if I hit on all four, imma have to work four 24 hour shifts in a row smh.” Most sneakerheads seemed to view the drop as an apolitical return to business as usual, though some Ye fans clearly saw it as a kind of vindication for the embattled rap star and fashion mogul. ![]() Others worried how much it might cost them to win every raffle they entered: “I’m in four different draws for some Yeezys,” tweeted. On Twitter, some complained about losing the raffles that determine who gets the chance to buy a pair of Yeezys. As Adidas sold off some of the Yeezy shoes left over from its partnership with Ye, which ended last October, fans turned to social media for a familiar ritual of shared delight and disappointment. On Wednesday, for the first time in over seven months, sneakerheads put aside their love-hate relationship with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, and resumed a love-hate relationship with his Yeezy sneaker brand-which is to say, loving to buy them and hating to miss out.
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