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The Yeezy has been a popular footwear brand for the last decade or so. Since the release of Air Jordan 1, the iconic design of from Nike in 1985, these shoes have only seen a rise in popularity.
Yeezy was initially designed by popular rapper and record producer Kanye West in the early 2000s, as part of his exclusive apparel brand. The high-end line of footwear has been in the news recently for controversial reason. In this article, we explore some lesser-known facts about Yeezy that only enthusiasts may be aware of.
History with Nike and Adidas - 5 lesser known facts about Yeezy, the exclusive high-end footwear lineup designed by Kanye West
1) The first pair of Yeezy was designed in 2006
While Yeezy is known as an exclusive line under the lifestyle brand Adidas, it had a vivid history with some other well-known brands as well. Kanye West designed his first shoe in 2006, ironically for Adidas, but it never arrived in the market.
West's first proper footwear collaboration was with BAPE, the Japanese clothing brand. He designed the Bapesta "College Dropout" pair of shoes in 2007. Following that, West got into a collaboration with Nike in 2009, and designed for them a total of three pairs of shoes - the Air Yeezy 1, the Air Yeezy 2 2012 and 2014.
After the termination of their contract at the end of 2013, West finally got back in talks with Adidas and came together for a long-term collaboration to work on and produce Yeezys.
2) Kanye West left Nike because of royalty issues
Kanye West's personal line of high-end footwear, the Yeezy, has its fair share of history with other brands. Nike had produced a total of three generations of Yeezys - the Air Yeezy 1 and Air Yeezy 2 (2012 & 2014), which created a buzz in the market.
But in 2013, West was forced to drop the collaboration with Nike for certain reasons. In an interview with Charlamagne tha God, West talked about the reasons which made him break off his partnership with the footwear honcho. Apparently, the brand had denied to pay him royalties for the sale of his personally-designed footwear. They had instead offered to pay the proceedings to a charity of his choice.
Allegedly, this had made West feel devalued. West also went on to say that they were unwilling to have a face-to-face chat and did not truly understand the reason why the shoes were so popular among the masses.
3) It had a whole line of apparels originally
Although Yeezy is a brand known for its high-end footwear designs, West had originally planned it to be an exclusive clothing line. After his collaboration with Adidas came into effect in 2014, the brand released a plethora of different apparel other than shoes.
The eponymous clothing line came out in 2015 with the season 1 release from Adidas. The lineup included socks, slides, slippers, women's shoes, jackets, sweatpants, and shirts. Although the shoes flew off the shelves pretty quickly, the clothes did not. This resulted in Adidas finally dropping them in 2018 and only retaining the footwear. West was supposedly in talks with Louis Voitton for an apparel line, but that never materialized too.
4) DeAndre Hopkins got fined for wearing them on field
NFL is known for reinforcing its rules quite strictly and fining players if they choose to or happen to defy any of them. In 2016, DeAndre Hopkins, a premier football athlete for the Houstan Texans at the time, was fined a massive $6000 for wearing cleats designed by West. The Yeezy Boost 350 did not have a solid base colour, which is a mandate from NFL.
After the fine was issued, DeAndre told the media that he would not wear the shoes on field anymore unless West was willing to pay the fine for him. However, the fine was issued the same weekend that NFL decided to not fine a number of players for wearing multicolored cleats in respect of the 9/11 attacks.
5) Why Adidas broke off its ties with Kanye West and dropped the Yeezy
Yeezy has been in the news recently, and not for the right reasons. The Adidas x West collaboration broke off recently after Kanye West made some questionable comments on media. The public did not take to it kindly and had been asking Adidas to drop its contract with West since.
Kanye West made anti-semitic comments which were not received well. Multiple brands have dropped their endorsements with West since then and has condemned his comments openly. The German company, Adidas has also terminated their contract saying that West's comments were unacceptable and they did not endorse or support any such notions.
Some notable brands among the ones who broke off ties with West include Balenciaga, Vogue, GAP, MRC, CAA, Foot locker, TJ Maxx and other notable personalities.
