Yeezy is stepping back into the fashion circuit with the debut of a flagship store in Los Angeles and a runway show.
The fashion and lifestyle brand officially confirmed its Nov. 4 store opening and runway show by sending invitations to press and media outlets. The presentation is set to start at 8 p.m. at the Yeezy Flagship Droam 1 at 4317 Beverly Blvd.
Titled Season 01, the showcase announcement confirmed the brand’s relaunch after more than four years without a major runway show. Yeezy’s disappearance from the fashion industry is no secret, as its founder Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) has courted controversy in recent years.
Prior to the brand collapsing under controversy, Yeezy changed the landscape of streetwear and sneaker culture and celebrity partnerships.
In 2009, before Yeezy independently existed, Ye collaborated with Nike to release “Nike Air Yeezy 1”, followed by “Air Yeezy 2” in 2012. The partnership was unprecedented as it was the first time Nike gave a signature shoe line to a non-athlete. Despite the success of the partnership, Ye cut ties with Nike in 2013, after the sports brand refused to pay Ye royalties on his designs.
That same year, Ye signed a deal with Adidas, offering the artist 100% Yeezy ownership, full creative control and a 15% royalty rate on wholesale. In 2015, the collaboration launched “Yeezy Season 1,” dropping the high-top Yeezy Boost 750 and Yeezy Boost 350 featuring Adidas and Primeknit uppers. The two brands utilized limited drops that drove resale prices sky-high.
By 2020, Yeezy had $1.7 billion in annual revenue for Adidas. Yeezy’s designs helped popularize oversized avant-garde silhouettes and muted earthy tones in the fashion world. To continue spreading Yeezy, Ye signed a 10-year deal with Gap, creating the Yeezy Gap line, but the deal ended in 2022 when Ye terminated the contract, accusing Gap of failing to fulfill obligations and delaying the opening of Yeezy retail stores.
From there, everything seemed to go downhill, as despite the lucrativeness of Yeezy collaborations, Ye accused Adidas of copying his designs and using them for the brand’s mainline products. Yeezy’s last major fashion show was in October 2022, during Paris Fashion Week. It was an off-calendar show displaying Yeezy’s Season 9 collection. At the show, Ye wore a controversial “White Lives Matter” T-shirt. After the designer made a series of antisemitic comments across various social media platforms.
That same month, Adidas severed ties with Ye and said in a statement that his remarks were “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.” With the abrupt termination, Adidas held $1.2 billion in unsold Yeezy inventory, which it later agreed to sell off in stages, while donating a portion of the profits to international anti-discrimination and anti-hate organizations. Many other brands followed Adidas, such as Balenciaga, in dropping Ye from partnerships and deals.
Ye did drop a Season 10 line and showcase in 2023, but rather than a traditional runway experience, a group of models with shaved heads stood in a dimly lit, industrial room in an empty warehouse on Melrose Avenue. The show barely highlighted any complex fashion designs, with the models dressed in skin-tight, unbranded white T-shirts and black pants and tight stockings. Ye was also absent from the showcase and reportedly left before the show even began.
In January, Ye bought a full page in The Wall Street Journal to publish a letter titled “To Those I Hurt.” Ye publicly apologized for his antisemitic behavior, writing, “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people,” after selling T-shirts with swastikas and other inflammatory statements he’s made in the past. In the letter, he blamed much of his reckless behavior and public outbursts on his bipolar disorder.
A couple of months later, Ye went on tour for his album Bully, in which he faced multiple postponements and cancellations of tour stops due to his past political and hate speech controversies. During this time period, he was also supposed to headline The Wireless Music Festival in London, but organizers canceled after the U.K. barred Ye from entering the country. After the cancellation, Prime Minister Keir Starmer publicly criticized his appearance as headliner, saying, “Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless.”
The announcement of Yeezy’s new line Season 01 confirmed initial industry report leaks from Puck News in late October, which implied the brand’s comeback. Ye also hinted at the brand’s return earlier this year after releasing essential wardrobe basics on the Yeezy webstore.
The official Season 01 runway show and the opening of Yeezy’s new flagship store mark the start of the brand’s independence and will be the first formal runway show since breaking its long-term partnership with Adidas.
Questions remain about whether the show will demonstrate what Yeezy represents today and if it has evolved in its four-year absence. During its vacancy, the fashion industry has evolved past many of the brand’s popularized designs, testing if the runway show will ride solely on the publicity surrounding his return, or if Yeezy has something new to offer the industry.
The post Yeezy Returns to The Runway After Four Years appeared first on LAmag.
