For those of you who don’t know, August 2 is Yeezy Day. The day Adidas uses to drop some of its hottest new sneakers under the Yeezy sub-brand created in collaboration with Kanye West. It’s the day that sneakerheads around the world can score restocked or newly released colourways via the Adidas app. Unfortunately, it turns out that Kanye is unhappy about it all, accusing the brand of making up the day without his say so.
Ye took to Instagram, and sent a DM to the Complex Instagram account, sharing his ire. It turns out a lot has been going on without his approval. “Adidas made up Yeezy Day without my approval then went and brought back older styles without my approval picked colours and named them without my approval went and hired people that worked for me without my approval stole my colourways without my approval stole my styles and material approaches without my approval went and hired a gm of Yeezy without my approval took talent on the production side and sprinkled them throughout Adidas Originals without my approval.”
Ye added that the brand stopped the production of shoes he designed with Balenciaga’s creative director, Demna Gvasalia, and went on to lambast them further, saying that when he approached the Adidas to produce more pairs of Yeezy Slides, the brand said, “they didn’t have the capacity meanwhile Adidas was copying my slides and making their own versions of Yeezy Slides.”
Yeezy Day is a rival to Nike’s Air Max Day and was first introduced in 2019. Initially a two-day event, it allowed fans to purchase new and never seen editions from the brand.
West has seemingly grown frustrated in his partnership with Adidas in recent months. Whether the Yeezy brand – worth an estimated $3-4 billion as per a UBS estimation in 2021 – will maintain its current situation remains to be seen.
