According to a report by CNN on October 26, after being terminated by Adidas, Kanye West (Ye) is trying to find a new owner for Yeezy shoes. He ran to the footwear brand Sri Lanka on the 26th. Skechers asked for help, only to be kicked out.
Skechers later issued a statement saying that Kanye was uninvited and that the company “did not consider nor intend” to cooperate with him, and condemned his recent “divisive remarks.”
The American rapper and fashion entrepreneur Kanye Kanye, who was caught in a huge controversy because of his “anti-Semitic” remarks, is actively looking for a new home for Yeezy shoes after losing his most important partner, Adidas, on October 25.
He once parted ways with Nike and switched to Adidas due to dissatisfaction with the royalty split and limited strategy. This time he turned his attention to the footwear brand with the third market share in the United States (Nike first, Adidas second) – headquartered in California. Skechers. According to US media PageSix and TMZ, Skechers is run by a Jewish family, and Robert Greenberg and his son Michael Greenberg founded the brand in 1992.
According to US media reports, Kanye arrived at Skechers’ building in Los Angeles on the morning of the 26th local time, hoping to talk to the company’s executives about potential business cooperation opportunities.
Skechers immediately issued a statement that afternoon, saying that Kanye came in without notice and without invitation. Kanye and his team, accompanied by two executives from the company, were removed from the building after “a brief conversation,” the statement said.
Skechers said they “did not consider and have no intention” to work with Kanye, and condemned his recent “divisive rhetoric” saying the company “does not tolerate anti-Semitism or any other form of hate speech.” .
At the end of the statement, Skechers once again distanced himself from Kanye, reiterating that the other party came without an invitation or a greeting.
While being rejected by his target partner, Kanye is facing an intensifying wave of boycotts due to a series of words and deeds. In early October, he appeared at Paris Fashion Week wearing a T-shirt printed with “White Lives Matter”, and then claimed that a rapper was controlled by a “mysterious Jew”, and also made remarks such as “to enter a state of war against Jews”, Banned from Twitter and Instagram. Since then, he has continued to make controversial remarks in various programs, claiming that the black George Floyd was not kneeled to death by the American police, but died of fentanyl.
The day before Kanye took the team to the Skechers Building (October 25), Adidas ended its ten-year partnership with him. Forbes estimated that the termination of the contract would wipe out 1.5 billion of Kanye’s net worth. US dollars (about 10.8 billion yuan).
Due to concerns that Yeezy shoes will become out of print, adidas Yeezy has ushered in a hot sale in the second-hand market. The adidas Yeezy Boost 700 V1 Mauve rose to No. 2 on eBay’s best-selling sneaker rankings just hours after Adidas announced it was discontinuing Yeezy shoes, then dropped to No. 3 a day later.
It is worth noting that the last paragraph of Adidas’ termination statement reads, “Adidas is the sole owner of all design rights for existing products, past products and new product colorways under the partnership.”
At present, the termination of the contract between the two has not been made public. According to CNN analysis, according to industry standards, although Kanye is the owner of the “Yeezy” trademark, Adidas owns the Yeezy shoes. Because Yeezy’s inspiration and creativity came from Kanye’s conception, but Adidas is really responsible for the design and manufacture.
Different from clothing, the design of sports shoes is more closely related to the technology and patents mastered by the shoe giant. The sole comfort and woven fabric of Yeezy shoes come from Adidas’ patented technology.
Legal experts interviewed by CNN said that although Adidas said it would stop the business of adidas Yeezy, they opened the door to remodeling the existing Yeezy design.
