Kanye West’s Yeezy Gap product will be available to purchase in the flesh for the first time this week, it was announced in a press release on Wednesday (July 20).
Pieces from Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga — Ye’s collaboration with Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia that launched earlier this year — will hit shelves at Gap’s flagship Times Square square in New York City from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m ET on Thursday (July 21).
The sough-after collection will get a limited in-store release at more U.S. locations in the near future.
View this post on Instagram
Gap’s Times Square store is being “reengineered and distilled to its most essential form in Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga’s vision of utilitarian design,” the press release reads. “The entry into Gap stores fulfills the vision to deliver Yeezy Gap design on a larger scale.”
Kanye’s Yeezy brand also launched an official Instagram account on Wednesday, through which it debuted a commercial promoting its in-store release. Directed by Thyago Sainte with creative direction by Betsy Johnson, the 50-second spot shows a masked customer silently purchasing Yeezy Gap product.
View this post on Instagram
Kanye West — who worked as a retail employee at Gap in his youth, as detailed on The College Dropout song “Spaceship” — struck a 10-year partnership with Gap in 2020.
It has proven to be a fruitful partnership so far, with Kanye revealing on Instagram earlier this month that he’s responsible for “two of the biggest sales day[s] in Gap history.” He claimed the $80 Yeezy Gap Perfect Hoodie garnered $14 million in sales “off of a television commercial that was ran one time,” referencing his “Heaven and Hell” music video from January.
That same month, Kanye West expanded the partnership by announcing Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga. The first part of the collection debuted in February, coinciding with Ye’s Donda 2 performance experience in Miami, Florida.
Described as “timeless silhouettes translated through a lens of Ye and Demma’s shared vision of utilitarian design,” the collection includes logo tees, hoodies, sweatpants, a bodysuit, puffer jacket and cargo pants, with prices ranging between $60 and $200.
For those unable to make it to Gap’s Times Square store, Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga is also available online at YeezyGap.com and Balenciaga.com, as well as Farfetch, Mytheresa and LUISAVIAROMA.
[via]
