The big leap of Yeezy

Despite the events that saw Kanye West as the protagonist, 2020 was a positive year for Yeezy. After the Season 8 show in Paris and the total absence of news on one of its releases, the brand has announced the partnership with Gap for the creation of a basic clothing line that will see Mowalola Ogunlesi alongside Kanye West in the creative direction of the project. A project that in the minds of fans should fill that void left for almost four years without apparel releases but which has instead seen the growth and consolidation of the Yeezy brand in the world of sneakers. 

It was 2016 when Kanye West announced his desire to increase the stock of each Yeezy release with the aim of being able to make them available to anyone who wanted a pair. A promise kept judging by the numbers, which in 2020 saw Yeezy climb positions in the rankings of the most sought after brands on StockX, testifying the success of a project that wants to abandon the expedient of limited releases as an excuse to justify a sneaker game that for years it has been proposing old models and silhouettes already seen. "Yeezy make life easy" Kanye had written a while ago on a blackboard during one of his many mysterious meetings, perfectly summarizing the idea of a brand that aims to free itself from the obsessive rush of hype trying to get closer to a closer simplicity to the wishes of the buyer.

If the billions earned during 2020 weren't enough, the next collaboration with Gap is a further confirmation of Kanye's plan, which between a run to the White House gone bad and the now persistent rumours of divorce with Kim Kardashian, has found time to work on a clothing line of basics dropping in the first months of this 2021. The ten-year agreement provides for the creation of a continuous line that will complement the Gap one, ideally representing an easily purchasable option (resell permitting) but perfectly integrated into the West aesthetic. The arrival of the YZY GAP collection is an important step in the growth of the brand, increasingly launched towards the idea of "McDonald's of clothing" announced by Kanye West in the interview with Wall Street Jornal last March. 

But McDonald's would not exist without gourmet cuisine, and it is perhaps for this reason that despite the success West seems to not want to abandon the path of experimentation as evidenced by the launch of four new silhouettes in the last twelve months, winning the Foam Runner bet (that became soon a grail for the Yeezy community) and Slides, available with a price higher by 400% on the retail price on StockX. A road that seems destined to continue also in 2021 with the arrival of two other models directly from Paris: the Puffer Boots and the Yeezy 1020V, which are thus added to the already announced Yeezy 451, new colourways of Slides and the return of the 500 High. If everything goes according to plan, over the course of the year, Kanye West'sbrand could implement the second step of its plan, further transforming Ye's project into reality which, in theory, should see a continuous expansion towards architecture, furniture and even make-up. A megalomaniacal plan like its creator, the same one that has always been right up to now.