Gap

Kanye West Says He’s The ‘One Individual On The Planet Who Could Save The Gap’

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After declaring that he wants out of his deal with Gap Inc. in a letter to the clothing retailer earlier today, Kanye West appeared on CNBC — a contrast to his prior interview with Fox News — to offer an edgy interview about the proposed split. An irascible interview subject at the best of times, this time, a standoffish Kanye appeared in mirrored sunglasses and sporting a 1970s beard — think Black Macho Man Randy Savage — and didn’t provide much illumination on the deal, taking the opportunity to take more potshots at Gap, as he’s been doing for the past few weeks.

As the CNBC correspondent notes, Gap and Adidas’ stocks have taken a hit due to Kanye’s grumbling. Pointing out that he was once a huge proponent of Gap, even name-checking the stores in his early songs, she asks whether he believes Gap could recover. “They only have one opportunity to be able to be a big player,” he shoots back. “What do you think it is? They have one individual on the planet who could say the Gap… Sometimes, the answer’s sitting right in front of you… Don’t bring a leader in and have him not lead. I’m not going to argue with people that are broker than me about money.”

In addition, he promises that the Macho Man-esque glasses he’s wearing in the interview will “be out soon,” although, with his current retail partnership in shambles, it’s unclear how. Kanye says that Gap violated the conditions of his contract with them, but it remains to be seen whether the deal will actually be terminated before its planned expiration in 2026. You can watch Kanye’s prickly interview above.

Yeezy GAP Partnership Is Over! Kanye Sends Notice Of Termination Letter To GAP Executives

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Ye Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga

Earlier this week, in an interview with Bloomberg, Kanye shared plans of ending his partnerships with Adidas and Gap when the contracts expired in 2026 and 2030, respectively. In his interview he noted that there would be “No more companies standing in between me and the audience.”

Well, it seems as if Kanye is taking the initiative and not waiting for his contracts to expire. One of West’s attorneys told the Associated Press earlier this morning that a notice of termination was sent to GAP executives, effectively ending the Yeezy x GAP partnership after only two years.

The termination letter stated that GAP had failed to uphold their end of the agreement, which included launching Yeezy GAP merchandise in retail stores and eventually opening up Yeezy GAP retail stores by next year. “Gap left Ye no choice but to terminate their collaboration agreement because of Gap’s substantial noncompliance,” one of Ye’s lawyers, Nicholas Gravante Jr, said in an email to the AP.

While the Yeezy GAP Engineeered By Balenciaga collection was made available in stores, the notice of termination letter says that the collection was a part of a separate agreement and does not fulfill GAP’s contractual obligations.

When the partnership between Ye and the clothing giant was announced 2 years ago, many were excited that Yeezy apparel would finally be available to the masses. It was a full circle event for Kanye who used to work at the GAP and famously rapped about his experience on The College Dropout. His partnership also would help him fulfill his vision of creating egalitarian clothing for the masses.

However, since the partnership was announced 2 years ago, it has been marred by inconsistency. Pre orders for the Yeezy “round jacket” first dropped after the first of three DONDA listening parties and in September of last year, the “perfect hoodies” were made available online. However, none of these drops were put in retail stores.

Now, Ye is destined to move on from relying on corporate partnerships and will take matters into his own hands.

The post Yeezy GAP Partnership Is Over! Kanye Sends Notice Of Termination Letter To GAP Executives appeared first on The Source.

Kanye West Claims He’s Terminating His Deal With Gap For Violating Their Contract

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Kanye West has spent the past several weeks agitating against his business partners at Gap and now accuses the company of violating their contract with him in a letter sent to the company by his lawyer. According to CNBC, Kanye now wants to terminate the deal altogether, despite having four years left to go on the original term of the partnership. The main sticking point, according to West’s lawyer Nicholas Gravante, is the distribution of Yeezy products by the second half of 2021 and the creation of dedicated Yeezy Gap stores.

Per the original deal, Yeezy would be solely owned by Kanye, who would receive royalties and equity based on the sales. Pending the sales meeting certain targets, Yeezy stood to earn up to 8.5 million shares, with some sources valuing the partnership at nearly $1 billion. Although some Yeezy products were made available in Gap’s Times Square store in New York, Ye’s lawyers claim that they don’t count toward the terms of the partnership because they were a collaboration with Balenciaga — a separate deal altogether.

When the deal was signed with Yeezy back in 2020, Gap believed that the famous rap star’s cosign would boost slumping sales, but the quarterly earnings report released this August revealed disappointing results for the first half of 2022. Earlier this month, Kanye said he planned to continue the Yeezy apparel brand without Gap once the contract expired, but now it appears he’s trying to force that to happen sooner rather than later.

Kanye West Plans To Leave Adidas And Gap Once Their Contracts Expire: ‘No More Companies Standing In Between’

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Kanye West’s grievances with Adidas and Gap have been made readily apparent on social media by Kanye himself, and now he wants to “go it alone,” according to a new interview with Bloomberg. After accusing both companies of falling short in their obligations and stealing designs while making odd demands and stonewalling on product approvals, Kanye now apparently believes that he can fund his Yeezy apparel and footwear design, manufacture, and marketing himself.

Among his demands to his business partners are opening brick-and-mortar Yeezy stores (at a time when retail is moving more and more online), a 20% royalty from all the shoes bearing his name from Adidas (he already receives around $200 million in annual royalties and does not front the cost of research, development, or manufacture of the shoes), and chairs on both companies’ boards of directors.

While he acknowledges that both deals have been quite lucrative for him — his “billionaire” status is based largely on the long-term health of those deals and the royalties he receives from them — he is adamant that he can do just as well on his own. He also recognizes that these contracts both have long remaining terms; his Adidas deal expires in 2026, while his Gap one will remain in effect until 2030.

“It’s time for me to go it alone,” he told Bloomberg. “It’s fine. I made the companies money. The companies made me money. We created ideas that will change apparel forever. Like the round jacket, the foam runner, the slides that have changed the shoe industry. Now it’s time for Ye to make the new industry. No more companies standing in between me and the audience… They my new baby mamas. I guess we’re just going to have to co-parent those 350s.”

Kanye West Proclaims Adidas CEO ‘Dead’ In Mock Newspaper After Brand Friction

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Kanye West, never the one to shy away from a public feud, adds Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted to his long list of enemies.

The design executive and artist posted a mock New York Times headline to his social media, reading “Kasper Rorsted Also Dead At 60″ and captioned the photo “God Loves Us.” 

The post, a nod to a similar attack he shared about Kim Kardashian’s ex Pete Davidson, has since been removed. 

Hostility has been rising between Ye, 45, and Adidas for some time, after the company launched “Yeezy Day” without his approval, letting fans get previously-released versions of his shoes. He’s also publicly accused the sportswear brand of stealing design ideas from him for their “Adilette” slides. 

READ MORE: Why Is Kanye West’s Yeezy GAP Line Displayed In Trash Bags?

Just a day earlier West went on the attack against clothing company GAP, saying the brand kept him out of meetings and also stole designs from him.

Even though his contract is up in 2026, last week Adidas announced Kasper was leaving the company in 2023. He started with the brand in 2016, according to CNBC.

Continue the conversation on social media.

The post Kanye West Proclaims Adidas CEO ‘Dead’ In Mock Newspaper After Brand Friction appeared first on The Source.

Why Is Kanye West Upset With Adidas And Gap?

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Kanye West is rapidly becoming as well known for this growing list of enemies as he is for his music. What has been even more notable, however, has been just who he’s added to that list, which previously included musical rival Drake and now includes his former protege Kid Cudi and romantic rival Pete Davidson.

However, while he’s got inscrutable though understandable reasons for all of the above, fans can’t help but be confused as Kanye sets his sights on Adidas and Gap — two corporations with which his Yeezy brand is partnered, contributing to his touted billionaire status. For the past few months, the mercurial producer turned designer has been lashing out at his creative partners, from posting a fake headline trolling Adidas CEO Kasper Rørsted to accusing Gap of holding meetings about him without him.

So, why is Kanye so upset with Adidas and Gap?

The crux appears to be Kanye’s expectations of his partnerships with these companies and how they have failed to meet them in his eyes. In June, he posted an angry Instagram, calling Adidas’ Adilette 22 slides “fake Yeezys” for being too similar to the Yeezy slides. Then, in early August, he DMed Complex on Instagram, telling the account’s admin that he hadn’t approved Adidas’ Yeezy Day campaign. Meanwhile, fans were dumbfounded when he apparently ordered Gap store employees to yank his Yeezy collection from their shelves and hangers to present them in large, black garbage bags.

Now, he’s expressing plans to open his own independent Yeezy brand stores — something he said they are contractually obligated to do, but refuse to. Basically, he’s unhappy that both companies have made products that are similar in form and function to Yeezy designs while also following traditional business models in lieu of following his more radical intentions.

It remains to be seen if the leadership at either company — Rørsted is stepping down as CEO sometime this year — continues to put up with his agitating for very much longer. One thing is sure: Kanye is an unpredictable business partner who isn’t afraid to publicly air his grievances, whether it’s good business or not.

Why Is Kanye West Selling Yeezy Clothes Out Of Large Bags?

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Kanye West has been known for some unconventional rollouts in the past, but the way he insisted his latest Yeezy Gap collaboration be sold has even his staunchest fans flabbergasted. Kanye’s latest collection has his clothing clumped together in massive garbage bags on shop floors rather than hung or folded neatly on shelves. A now-viral tweet from a customer asserts that a sales associate explained, “Ye got mad when he saw they had it on hangers and this is how he wanted it. They won’t help you find ur size too, you just have to just dig through everything.”

Naturally, the question on everyone’s minds is: Why? However, it doesn’t appear that an answer is forthcoming. During a recent appearance on Fox & Friends, which normally loves to hate on rappers but seems to be making an exception for the Trump-supporting Kanye, the rebellious rapper said, “Look, man: I’m an innovator, and I’m not here to sit up and apologize about my ideas. That’s exactly what the media tries to do: Make us apologize for any idea that doesn’t fall under exactly the way they want us to think.” Not exactly an answer.

For what it’s worth, Kanye’s sometimes outrageous approach to doing things often flies in the face of tradition, but often becomes standard operating practice down the line. For instance, when he released The Life Of Pablo to streaming services only partially completed in 2016 and spent the next year or so tweaking things to his liking, he angered some fans who believed he was short-changing them. However, in recent months, stars like Lizzo and Beyonce updated their albums post-release to clean up some questionable language when fans protested. Since then, he’s innovated album releases further by putting out Donda 2 exclusively on his stem player device.

Could this spell the end of clothes hangers and dressed-up mannequins at retail? It probably depends on how well this strategy works out. As CNN points out, though, brick-and-mortar stores have been pretty consistently losing business in the face of online shopping, which is much more convenient. Ironically enough, when you buy clothes online, guess how they arrive. That’s right: In a bag.