What to expect from the collabo between Yeezy and Balenciaga

A bit like a skilled illusionist, last Friday while most of us were busy commenting on his bizarre relationship with actress Julia Fox, Kanye West has scored a real masterstroke, the collabo that in January 2022 could already have mortgaged the title of "Most Important Collaboration of the Year". Renamed Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga, the evolution of the partnership between West and the American fast fashion retailer marks a next step in the concept of "democratic fashion" that has always accompanied the mission of the rapper, who started from an idea of fashion close to luxury with his Yeezy Season collections to get closer and closer to the desire to "delivering his vision of utilitarian design for all", as written in the statement that accompanied the announcement of the collabo. With a first drop scheduled for next June, to date it is almost impossible to make an estimate of expectations, which items we will see and in what form they will be launched, but certainly we can try to reason as much on the meaning as on the process that led to the birth of this project.

If you have followed the previous episodes, surely you remember the genesis of the relationship between Ye and Demna (two people who in the last year have decided to abandon their surnames): born about six years ago with the Georgian designer's involvement in the design team of the first Yeezy Season collections and with West's public appreciation for Vetements, in the last year and a half the relationship has become thicker first with Demna's work in the events that anticipated the release of Donda and then with a growing passion of Kanye for Gvasalia's work at Balenciaga. Only last August we hypothesized the arrival of a collabo between West and the brand of the Kering group, an idea born also from the progressive approach of West with the Pinault family and that now, only a few months later, has finally taken shape in what can be defined as one of the most important collabo of all time. If in the past big names from the fashion industry have put their signature on collections designed for fast-fashion companies, that of Demna Gvasalia is undoubtedly a signature with a very different weight and that comes after a 2021 that has seen the Georgian designer as the absolute protagonist of the fashion system, able to continuously innovate and renew Balenciaga in a path that sees in Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga its natural continuation.

To add the right spice to this collabo there is also the presence of Kanye West, polarizing name in both music and fashion, which after being right with the first two drops of the collabo Yeezy Gap (look at the numbers on the platforms of resell if you do not believe us) has once again demonstrated its ability to surprise us, bringing in the same project a brand with over one hundred years of history and an American fast-fashion company in desperate need of a relaunch in a project that not only marks a new precedent in the relationship between fashion and rap, but certainly further advances the discussion on the role of collabo in fashion. If in the past we have complained about the now sterile mechanism of collaborations, which often "united" realities all too similar, in this case we are faced with the true role of a collabo, that of becoming a bridge between two distant and disconnected realities, making the impossible possible and letting us dream about what we will see in a few months. Moving on to practical information, at the moment Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga should have the same launch as the other items seen so far, with an online drop on the Gap site and a price range much lower than what we are used to Balenciaga. As for the items, at the moment the only clue is a photo appeared on Instagram a few days ago in which Demna and Kanye were engaged on what seemed to be the set of the lookbook of the collection in which a jacket appeared with a silhouette that screamed at the top of his lungs Balenciaga by Demna. It could be a clue, but if it's okay to expect something, then our bet could be on a collection far from the idea of "simplicity" where Gvasalia's vision is combined with West's utilistarism.