Kanye West has struck a deal with Gap to serve as the clothing retailer’s new creative director, designing “modern, elevated basics for men, women and kids at accessible price points.” Kanye’s new clothing line, Yeezy Gap, will roll out during the first half of 2021.
According to The New York Times, the deal spans 10 years, with the option to renew after five years. Gap is hoping that Kanye’s involvement will generate $1 billion in annual sales by the five-year point. That seems like a reasonable projection, given that Kanye’s current sneaker deal with adidas topped $1.3 billion in sales last year and was valued at more than $3 billion as of late April. The success of the adidas collaboration recently made Kanye a billionaire.
However, whereas the cost of Yeezy sneakers range from $200 to $500 for a pair and are often only available in limited quantities, his designs for Gap will be mass produced and sold at much more affordable price points, The Times reports.
Kanye — who worked at Gap as a teenager — has long expressed a desire to partner with the retailer to create a mass clothing line. “I’d like to be the Steve Jobs of the Gap… I’m not talking about a capsule. I’m talking about full Hedi Slimane creative control of the Gap,” he said in an interview in 2015. Now, he’s finally getting his wish.
As for what Kanye’s collaboration with the Gap might look like? Speaking to The Wall Street Journal earlier this year, Kanye previewed one such design he was working on: a self-described “perfect hoodie”. In his vision, the hoodie would be made in simple colors like flax or dusty stone (“a palette Jesus might have worn,” as WSJ described it), versatilely comfortable but “futuristic in its reach.” West would want the hoodie priced around $60 for the average consumer, sold “like loaves of bread” at a mass retailer. “In order to make the Apple of apparel the next Gap, it has to be a new invention,” West explained at the time. “To invent something that’s so good that you don’t even get credit for it because it’s the norm.”
YEEZY AND GAP FORM PARTNERSHIP #WESTDAYEVER pic.twitter.com/NyxgfYTjJM
— ye (@kanyewest) June 26, 2020
#WESTDAYEVER pic.twitter.com/ASMwbx7T2o
— ye (@kanyewest) June 26, 2020
