After Effects for Ye After Adidas Terminates Partnership

The world was shook when Adidas decided to terminates its nine year partnership with Kanye West  (Ye) on October 25th. The founder of Adidas took this shocking decision once there were  simultaneous controversies coming out against Ye such as when he wore a T-shirt with the slogan  “White Lives Matter” at the debut of the Yeezy Season 9 show. This show was taking place at Paris  Fashion Week and it left everyone speechless.  

The official statement released by Adidas was as follows - “Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism  and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable,  hateful, and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual  respect, and fairness.” In the four paragraph long statement released by Adidas it stated that they  would immediately stop the production of all products related to Yeezy while also remaining the  sole owner of the design of the existing products under the partnership. However, Ye still continues  to own the Yeezy trademark. This means that Adidas could choose to keep producing the designs  but won’t be able to brand it as Yeezy!

The antisemitic remarks made by Ye would include his hateful rants about the Jewish community.  This presented as a sensitive topic for Adidas considering the company’s long history in Germany.  On a podcast, Ye made the comment - “The thing about it being Adidas—I can say antisemitic  things and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what? Now what?” According to many critics, this comment  was considered as a nail in the coffin for Ye. Due to the deal ending between Adidas and Ye, his net  worth shrank down to a mere 400 million dollars (according to Forbes magazine). The magazine  also stated that Ye’s share of the Adidas partnership was values at a whopping 1.5 billion dollars.  For Adidas, ending this major partnership of Yeezy will obviously have a negative effect on their  business, however its speculated to be ‘short term’ with a fall in about 250 million euros on their net  income this year.  

Following Adidas terminating its partnership, many other companies also followed the company’s  lead. Companies like Balenciaga who Ye supported openly as well as Gap, who just a few months  back had installed “Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga” pop up stores in major cities like Los  Angeles and New York - also put a stop to their collaborations and stopped selling his products. In  recent months, with several companies ending their tie ups with Ye, his Twitter and Instagram  accounts were also restricted. These social media platforms removed some of the posts made by  him which were condemned as antisemitic by users. 

Now what comes ahead for Ye?  

Big companies like Balenciaga, Adidas and Gap will easily carry on without Ye in spite of the major  cultural impact that his collaboration had. It’s very likely that Ye would continue to make  innovations in the fashion industry but independently this time. He would have to create designs  which would be significantly different from the Yeezy brand since Adidas has sole ownership of  those designs. It is definitely going to be very tough for Ye to start from scratch considering all the  hate which has developed against him by the audience following his remarks. However, those loyal  fans would always remain loyal to the rapper. Let’s wait and watch what the future holds for Ye.