Back in October, Adidas AG, the German multinational corporation reportedly dropped its relationship with Kanye West, now known as Ye. The company took this decision after witnessing that Ye’s Twitter account was suspended over a tweet that he had posted.
The tweet from Ye said,
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,”
Speaking of which, a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that Ye’s account violated the platform’s policy,
“The account in question has been locked due to a violation of Twitter’s policies,” they said
In February 2015, the Adidas and West collaboration officially debuted. “Yeezy Season 1” was highly anticipated and celebrities such as Rihanna, Diddy, and West’s then-wife Kim Kardashian were at the introductory fashion show.
The Yeezy arrangement saw West license the Yeezy brand name to Adidas in exchange for royalties of approximately 15 percent of the sales of Yeezy products. The partnership was projected to expire in 2026 but it was dropped in October 2022.
The sportswear giant revoked the production of Yeezy-branded products and stopped payments to Ye and his companies stating that Adidas “does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the company said in a statement. “Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.”
Lately, the news has come into the limelight again. According to a press release rolled out last week by Adidas, the company may lose around $1.2 billion in revenues due to the unsold stock of Yeezy stock as a repercussion of its departed relationship with Ye.
Commenting on the situation, Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden in the press release denoted that the company is not performing well at present. He promised that the company will grow profitable in 2013,
“The numbers speak for themselves. We are currently not performing the way we should”, said adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden. “2023 will be a year of transition to set the base to again be a growing and profitable company. We will put full focus on the consumer, our athletes, our retail partners and our adidas employees. Together we will work on creating brand heat, improve our product engine, better serve our distribution and assure that adidas is a great and fun place to work. adidas has all the ingredients to be successful: A great brand, great people, fantastic partners and a global infrastructure second to none. We need to put the pieces back together again, but I am convinced that over time we will make adidas shine again. But we need some time.”
The German sportswear brand is receiving suggestions from notable personalities on how to make the best use of the unsold Yeezy stock.
What else can be done with such a unique-looking sneaker with a design unavoidably linked to Ye? Alden Wicker, a journalist who covers sustainable fashion, says the shoes should be recycled responsibly. The company has launched products that aim toward repurposing waste, such as the Adidas Terrex Futurecraft Loop anorak, made out of recycled ocean plastic. Wicker suggests that Adidas use the Yeezys to test new projects.
“It would be the perfect source material for testing, especially since Adidas knows exactly what the material composition is, and that is crucial information for the recycling process,” said Wicker
Shelton Boyd-Griffith, a contributing style editor at Essence, recommends that the shoes can be repurposed to create new ones.
“I think it would be great to repurpose the shoes to be used by other designers, or even in-house to create other shoes,” said Shelton “I know it’s very Frankenstein, but it could work.”
Zeke Hannula a San Francisco-based person who owns about 80 pairs of Yeezys, thinks that a recycling project on a big scale could never be sustainable, and fans would buy Yeezy products because the brand is not about Ye anymore.
“The vast majority of people who wear Yeezys don’t really care about Ye having anything to do with the sneakers,” said Hannula in a statement. “In the last few years, they’ve become really mainstream. You see parents wearing them because they’re comfortable.”
According to Bloomberg, In 2020, the Yeezy partnership brought in nearly $1.7bn in revenue for Adidas.
