Kanye West’s Yeezy designs will, in fact, live on at Adidas after all … but they’ll have a completely different title when they drop.
Adidas honchos announced Wednesday the company plans to continue selling more of the Ye-inspired shoes starting as early as 2023, but without a trace of the Yeezy name … according to Insider.
Adidas reportedly emphasized to their shareholders the company remains the sole owner of the core designs of the current Yeezys in circulation … including shoe silhouettes and colorways. As such, they feel they have every right to keep hawking them.
Adidas also gave some sobering financial numbers — noting it expects to lose up to half a billion dollars in annual revenue as a result of ending the partnership with Ye.
Previously, execs said they’d take a $247 million hit, this year alone.
Unclear if they’re going to discard the Yeezy inventory they have right now, or retweak and rerelease them. In any case, it sounds like sneakerheads will see “Yeezys” on the market again soon enough.
Adidas had already signaled this move when it first cut ties with Kanye — explicitly saying the shoe designs belonged to them. Kanye hasn’t publicly said anything about that stance or the company’s plan to sell rebranded Yeezys.
We know Kanye’s griped in the past about ownership. As it stands, at least on paper, he only owns the patent to Yeezy Slides.
FWIW, there are 14 different Yeezy shoe products (sans the Slides) that have been released over the years, and lord knows they’ve been popular and profitable thus far.
The question now is … are they worth as much without Ye’s name attached? We, and Adidas, are gonna find out.
[via]
