Image via @wex
Longtime Adidas exec Jon Wexler reportedly has a new position with the brand: General Manager of Yeezy.
While some readers may know Wexler solely from his Instagram-famous #wexflex sneaker posts or have heard some surface level talk about his relationship with Kanye West, the near-20-year sneaker vet's résumé goes much deeper than that.
Get familiar with the new head of Yeezy below.
He Originally Wanted to Be a DJ
Before settling into his current career path, Wexler had ambitions of getting involved in the music business, specifically of being a DJ—his @wex1200 Twitter handle was inspired by the legendary Technics SL-1200 turntable. The Chicago native entertained the idea while attending the University of Wisconsin, eventually giving up the wheels of steel in favor of party promoting.
"A buddy of mine and I decided to start promoting hip-hop shows and that didn’t go so well but it went really well," Wexler said in a 2017 interview. "And what I mean is that we didn’t know what we were doing so we didn’t know what not to do, and we basically made every mistake along the way. And we learned incredible life lessons from it. In fact, that experience put me into that first step into what I’m doing now, because we lost all of our investors money for these shows. So in order to pay them off, I started working for them."
He Got His First Streetwear Job in 1993
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1993, Wexler got to work quickly, taking on sales rep roles at his brother's hat company and other fledgling streetwear brands. This early experience in the sportswear world is what ultimately let him to his first job with Adidas as a Category Manager of the Originals division in 2000.
He Left Adidas in 2004 to Work for Converse
Although he's best known for his tenure at Adidas, Wexler left the company briefly in 2004 and actually worked for the competition. For nearly two years, he worked as Converse's Director of Lifestyle Marketing, which included having a hand in the brand's collaborations and even product seeding long before social media was a thing.
He Almost Worked for Nike
It may seem hard to imagine now, but in between jobs in 2006, Wexler almost signed a deal with Nike. "I actually left Adidas for two years and came back," Wexler said in an interview with Jeff Staple on Hypebeast's Business of Hype podcast. "We moved to the east coast [to work for Converse], had my second child out there, and then we moved back to Portland in 2006. Then there was another situation where I was in the running for this position at Nike." Wexler didn't elaborate much on the offer, but it's interesting to imagine what could've been.
He Returned to Adidas in 2006 and Has Been Working His Way Up Ever Since
After leaving Converse in July of 2006, Wexler soon found himself in Adidas' U.S. base of Portland once again. He assumed a Brand Manager role with the Three Stripes in December of 2006, covering the U.S. region before being promoted to Global Brand Manager less than a year later. In the decade-plus since, his formal title has shifted to Vice President of Global Entertainment and Influencer Marketing. In other words, Wexler's responsible for everything from high-profile celebrity collaborations with the likes of Kanye West to seeding the people behind some of your favorite Instagram accounts.
He Saw Potential in Big Sean Early On
These days, Wexler is best known to sneakerheads as the dot-connector behind Adidas' partnerships with names like Kanye West, Pharrell, and Pusha T, but having his finger on the pulse of the culture is nothing new for the Three Stripes veteran. "We did our first in-store with Big Sean before his first album, Finally Famous, came out," Wexler told Complex in 2014. "I told him, 'I think you need to change the title of your album—you’re famous.'" The brand would partner with Sean on a handful of sneaker collaborations shortly thereafter.
Kanye West Says Wexler Saved His Life
Wexler's most high-profile entertainer bond is undoubtedly his relationship with Kanye West. From the early days of courting West while he was still with Nike to ultimately helping the Yeezy designer get his billion-dollar empire up and runnning, Wexler has been there for the whole ride. In 2015, while accepting the Footwear News Shoe of the Year award for his Yeezy Boost 350, West bestowed the ultimate compliment upon Wexler, crediting the Adidas exec with saving his life.
He Helped Pusha T's Fishscale Sneakers Get Approved
By now, Pusha T's contraband-inspired Adidas collaborations are nearly as commonplace as his coke raps, but in 2014, it seemed hard to fathom that Adidas would sign off on a sneaker referencing Pusha's drug dealing past. However, rather than shy away, Adidas went all-in, covering the EQT Guidance 93 model in a cracked Italian leather and genuine carp scale overlays and throwing it inside a Pyrex-inspired Ziploc bag. In a 2015 interview with Complex, Pusha credited Wexler as one of the people who helped the collab go through. "Between my team, Wexler, and Emily Rose, they made everything as seamless as possible," Pusha said. "I wasn’t too big on doing sneakers. It wasn’t my wheelhouse. The only way I could do it and have it make sense is if I could add those specific details and nuances and people would know this is my sneaker."
He's Not Afraid to Fail
In an age of fake deep Instagram quotes and quasi-motivational pages, the internet isn't exactly full of reliable life lessons. Yet for Wexler, he keeps things simple, repeatedly coming back to the mantra of not being afraid to fail. It's a concept he championed in his TEDx Talk (below) and one you'll hear him constantly bring up in interviews and on social media. "If you follow your passions with unrelenting determination and permit yourself to fail the tomorrow of your dreams awaits," Wexler said. "Evel Knievel once said, 'A man can fail many, many times, but you're only a failure if you don't get up.' Trust in yourself, give yourself permission to fail, and start making some mistakes."
He's Been Known to Shut Down Sneaker Rumors
Even before taking on his newly-coined role as General Manager of Yeezy business, Wex was one of the brand's biggest social media ambassadors, regularly showing off shots of his massive collection and—perhaps more importantly—shutting down social media rumors before they get out of hand. Take for example last summer, when he shot down talks of a "Black/Red" Yeezy Boost 350 V2 restock with a simple "#FAKENEWS" tweet, or in 2017 when he came to the defense of rapper Stormzy, who was accused of wearing fake Yeezys.