Rise and Fall of "Yeezy"

 

Rise and Fall of "Yeezy"

Everybody is familiar with "Yeezy" brand, designed by Kanye West, collaborated with the biggest sneaker labels like "Nike" and "Adidas". Today, we are going to uncover the rise and fall of Kanye West sneaker kingdom. 

Collaboration with NIKE

Kanye West made it clear since the start, about his passion of becoming  a fashion designer. After winning the Grammy Award in 2006, he was set to launch his clothing line which was developed over 4 years and later been cancelled in 2009. In 2009, Kanye West collaborated with Nike to release his first shoe, Air Yeezy. The version 2 of the shoe-line from Kanye West was the Air Yeezy 2 which was released later in 2012. Kanye West became the first non-athlete to get Shoe deal with Nike. Kanye left Nike due to dispute of freedom to design and also monetary problems as Nike was not willing to pay royalties to Kanye West. After the successful Yeezy Line, Kanye entertained offers from Puma, who wasn't willing to sign him at that time and later when approached by Adidas, the deal was penned and the rest is history. The Air Yeezy line resell value skyrocketed once Kanye West changed the Label for his collaborations. Both the versions of Air Yeezy is now very rare to find in a deadstock condition. The price of the Air Yeezy 2 "Red October" is currently at 7,000 USD to 7,500 USD on StockX.

Moved to Adidas

 

Kanye West decided to change label from Nike to Adidas after the bad blood with Nike. The Yeezy 350 cleat "Turtle Dove" is the first athletic footwear product from the Adidas and Yeezy collaboration. "The shoe took the overall look and feel of the Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 however they installed a Primeknit upper reinforced with SprintSkin sitting on a 5-star cleat frame." The new Adidas Yeezy 350 Boost was obviously a huge success for both Kanye West and Adidas. Adidas Yeezy line was a huge success until the recent phenomenon of OFF-WHITE. OFF-WHITE has taken the sneaker industry by storm. Designer, Virgil Abloh, collaborated with Nike and has sold out every pair of Nike X OFFWHITE. The resell value of Virgil Abloh's collaboration has skyrocketed and there are still humongous hype behind every release of his and Nike collaboration. The Adidas Yeezy hype has died down due to very similar colorway of the same sneaker has been releasing, some of which is still on shelves. OFF-WHITE sneakers are set to be the next big thing moving forward for Nike, guess Nike finally found the successor of Kanye.

"Virgil Abloh"
OFF-WHITE Designer

Do you agree with the fall of Yeezy? Make sure to leave a comment! :)