On The Future Of Yeezys: Why Kanye West And Adidas Have Reached The End Of The Line
This Friday, Kanye West and Adidas are releasing “mass quantities” of the Yeezy Boost 350 V2 “Triple White.” Is this a prudent, business-savvy move to keep its core demographic happy, or will the brand follow in the footsteps of Jordan and kill its own hype?
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In 2012, after a long year beset with rumors, the Nike Air Yeezy 2 was slated to release for the first time in March.
Back then, as a 13-year-old living in central Connecticut, copping a pair of the sneakers was a tall task. The hype was out the door: at the time, Kanye was arguably the biggest name in all of popular culture, and early pairs for influencers like Jay-Z and Macklemore had ‘heads foaming at the mouth. As the Air Yeezy 2 was releasing in limited quantities — 5,000 per colorway, to be exact — found only in select Nike stores across the globe, the only thing certain about the shoes was that you would need to put in serious legwork to secure a pair.
As this was three years before I got my license, I couldn’t just drive out to New York City. I’m not even sure I could pay for the $245 pricetag, anyway. So I scribbled a picture of the Pure Platinums down in my notebook and thought, One day, when I have a stable bank account, I’ll buy a pair.
To no surprise, release day for the “Pure Platinum” and “Solar Red” colorways was madness, and that insanity has continued to the present. On the website StockX — which tracks resell prices across websites like eBay and Flight Club — the Plats are selling for an average of $3200, while the Solars are closing in on $4000. And the Red Octobers? Forget it — unless you’re willing to drop 5.5k on a pair of sneakers, that is.
The mythos of Mr. West and his career has helped drive the love for his Yeezy brand ever since he first designed the “Dropout Bear” Bapestas back in 2007. Also, it never hurt that the shoes were, ya know, dope.
After he left Nike over creative differences — and proceeded to drop insults and even a song about the breakup — success followed him to Adidas, even proceeding to make the German outfitter cool again.
But just how long can Kanye and Kanye alone keep the interest in his sneakers at an all-time high? With the Three Stripes betting big on its main man, they’re about to find out.
In February 2015, Kanye proclaimed something that turned the heads of sneakerheads everywhere. “Eventually, everybody who wants to get Yeezys will get Yeezys,” he said, partially in response to news that kids were getting their new pairs stolen in the street.
As it turns out, Friday, September 21st is that day. According to the official press release regarding the “Triple White” Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 V2, “…[the sneakers] will be released in mass quantities, giving an unprecedented number of fans worldwide direct access at retail price.”
What that number will look like, we don’t know. What we do know is that like every Yeezy release up until this point, the Triple Whites will sell out, even with a steep retail price set at $225. That’s just the nature of a sneaker that’s been incredibly popular up until this point, and we really don’t have any evidence to say otherwise.
Since the 350 debuted in 2016 with a limited run of “Turtle Doves” — 9,500, to be exact — the average Yeezy release has seen an increase in quantity. For a more visual representation, here’s a graph that insider account YEEZY MAFIA created towards the end of 2017:
When information like this leaks, it can single-handedly reset the market. Rumors from YEEZY MAFIA about a potential restock of the Turtle Doves saw resell prices drop $500 in a year alone.
Of course, sneakers abide by the law of supply and demand, only to the extreme. With the increased mainstream interest that many attribute to the Nike Air Foamposite “Galaxy” release in 2012 — along with the proliferation of online marketplaces in which to sell rare kicks — reselling became a complex ethical decision. When I was younger, I justified my attempts at making money reselling by saying, Okay, this is how I can afford the next pair of Air Jordan 4s that comes along.
There’s a big difference, though, when I net roughly $700 in profit over five years, and a kid becomes a millionaire “entrepreneur.” Old ‘heads see a story like that and start reminiscing about the days when you could walk into a Foot Locker and the latest release was sitting on the shelf. Nike is a very self-aware brand, too — when people started jumping on the bandwagon and complaining about limited releases, the folks in Beaverton knew they had to act.
Therefore, in response, Nike announced sometime around 2015 that they would start increasing the amount of Jordan Retro releases, as well as upping the price. Their logic? Cut out the resell market entirely by making their shoes easier to get while clearing a higher bar at retail.
At least, that’s what they said. But in reality, the Swoosh was getting greedy, trying to sell as many overpriced sneakers as possible. And once consumers realized that the person walking across the street from them was wearing the same kicks, all of a sudden, those Js started sitting on shelves.
This killed Jordan for a while. Even if they were making more money, the overall perception, the “hype,” was down. And as the Jumpman sputtered, Adidas’ two main influencers/designers— ‘Ye and Pharrell Williams — pounced, steering the brand into the streetwear mainstream while also shifting the narrative of athletes being the only ones capable of selling shoes.
For the last three years, the Three Stripes was all anyone talked about. Kanye wears a pair of Ultraboosts while performing at a Bulls game, and boom, the now-popular running shoe starts selling out. Pharell’s NMD collaborations start reselling for thousands of dollars. And since January 2015, Adidas stock has risen from $33 a share to…$122.
My brother, an Economics major, often talks about how it’s the perspective of outsiders that can make people money on the stock market. He jokes that back when Adidas first signed Kanye, I should’ve ran to an investment firm and bought a whole lot of shares.
Well, with that decent amount of knowledge relating to an industry I’ve been following for 10 years now, I gotta say, I think Adidas might’ve peaked. The hype around recent Yeezys releases just isn’t there anymore. In the article “Why Yeezys Will Never be the iPhone of Sneakers,” one sneakerhead tells Highsnobiety this:
“It’s almost embarrassing to wear some of the newer Yeezys in public, as mass production has driven them out of style.”
Again, Kanye is undoubtedly still an influencer, but the allure of owning a Yeezy just isn’t what it once was. It’s not like kids who had never even seen MJ play were flocking to stores in 2013 because of His Airness. And once the Jumpan lost its swagger, it never truly recovered.
Besides, even if Jordan Brand has struggled, Nike as a whole has reinserted itself into the streetwear conversation. Popular models like the Air Max 270 and the React Element 87 have reinvigorated fans of the brand, and that’s before you start looking into some of their high-profile collaborations. For instance, limited releases like Sean Wotherspoon’s Air Max 1/97, Nigel Sylvester’s Air Jordan 1, and Off-White’s string of designs dubbed “The Ten” have forced the Swoosh back into the limelight. Even LeBron collaborated with the likes of Ronnie Fieg and his Kith label. The competition for streetwear dominance has never been hotter.
It’s a perfect storm for Adidas ahead of their big release on Friday. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Triple Whites will sell out, but in the long run, Yeezys might very well go the way of Jordans before them, killing its brand for a big payout in the present.
Which isn’t a bad spot to be in. Many companies have watched Jordan’s meteoric rise and relatively-minor fall with envy. Overall, too, Jordan is probably too big to fail. Amidst its problems now, the Jumpman will bounce back. MJ’s legacy is just too great.
The question for Kanye, though, is simple: just how long can he stay relevant in a popular culture that ebbs and flows by the hour, particularly when that hour is full of ludicrous statements like this? We know that owning a pair of Yeezys isn’t as difficult as it once was. And now, it’s up to ‘Ye to make his sneakers stay relevant.
One day, longtime sneakerhead Nathan Graber-Lipperman might be able to afford that pair of Pure Platinums. You can follow him on Twitter here.
