YZY Gap is no more.
Hours after Kanye West announced he was cutting ties with the retailer, Gap executives confirmed the 10-year Yeezy partnership had come to a premature end. The brand shared the news in an internal letter obtained by New York Times.
“While we share a vision of bringing high-quality, trend-forward, utilitarian design to all people through unique omni experiences with Yeezy Gap, how we work together to deliver this vision is not aligned,” Gap president Mark Breitbard reportedly wrote. “And we are deciding to wind down the partnership.”
Earlier on Thursday, Kanye’s legal team sent a letter to the brand seeking to terminate their agreement. Ye’s lawyers accused Gap of breaching their contract, claiming it neglected to distribute certain merchandise and failed to open dedicated YZY Gap stores as initially planned.
“Gap left him no choice but to terminate their agreement,” West’s lawyer Nicholas Gravante Jr. told the Times. “Ye had diligently tried to work through these issues with Gap both directly and through counsel.”
The attorney said Kanye will now “promptly move forward to make up for lost time by opening Yeezy retail stores.”
The partnership was announced in summer 2020, and kicked off with the release of a blue puffer jacket. Since then, Yeezy and the Gap have rolled out a number of products, including tees and hoodies made in collaboration with Spanish fashion house Balenciaga.
The New York Times notes that the Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga line “is governed by a different contract and will not be affected by the Yeezy Gap termination notice.”
Kanye spoke about his decision during a Thursday interview on CNBC, claiming he had limited control over the collection’s price points, colorways, and stockists.
He told Closing Bell, “It was very frustrating, it was very disheartening, because I just put everything I had [into it]. … And sometimes I would talk to the guys, the heads, the leaders, and it would just be like I was on mute or something. Our agenda, it wasn’t aligned.”
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