The Kanye West fashion business is falling apart quickly. Not only have all of his significant brand partners—including Balenciaga, Adidas, and Gap—left him, but it's also getting more difficult to get Yeezys.
Gap said that it will be taking all Yeezy products off its shelves following West's xenophobic and antisemitic remarks on Twitter and in an interview with Tucker Carlson this month. Following suit, Foot Locker said that it will stop selling Yeezy sneakers. Even TJ Maxx said that it would stop selling Yeezy clothing.
Since their release in 2015, Yeezy shoes have become popular resale goods. Adidas may still produce identical sneakers without the Yeezy label, but Yeezy footwear are being phased out, and major shops are taking items linked to Kanye West off the shelves. The last location where individuals may purchase Yeezys is at resale. Since their release, the sneakers have been a hallmark of resale, but now resale marketplace The RealReal is prohibiting new listings.
Yeezy sneakers are becoming more and more radioactive. Numerous people on the /r/sneakers subreddit, the world's biggest sneaker forum, declared they would never purchase another pair of Yeezys. Shoshy Ciment, the business editor for Footwear News, uploaded a photo of her welcome mat on Twitter that said, "Please remove your Yeezys."
So what will happen to every Yeezy that is now in existence? Google data shows that on the morning of October 26, searches for "sell Yeezy" increased by about 600%. Glossy received the information after Celeb Tattler, a website dedicated to celebrity rumors, ordered it.
A representative for Celeb Tattler told Glossy: "It seems like people from all over the world have flocked to the internet to sell their Yeezy products, either because they no longer wish to support their inventor or because they thought that since Adidas won't be producing them anymore, the value of said items might increase in the next few months and years."
Other information provided to Glossy by Tribe Dynamics showed that the brand's EMV skyrocketed in the middle of October. The data tracked Yeezy's earned media value in September and October. In the first week of October, Yeezy's EMV was $1.7 million, and in the second week, it was $5.1 million.
It might make them less valuable if more individuals try to sell their Yeezys, overwhelming the market with supplies. A simple scan of StockX's publicly accessible sales data for the various Yeezy colorways reveals that their prices are generally stable or gradually dropping. On October 26, the cost of one colorway—the Yeezy 350 v2 Salt—did increase by about $100. According to a tweet from sports business analyst Darren Rovell, six of the top eight selling sneakers on StockX this week were Yeezy, despite prices largely remaining unchanged.
One of the pairs being sold through Christie's is the Nike Air Yeezy 1 Prototype, which the sneaker buying site Rares acquired from Sotheby's for $1.8 million in 2021. Requests for comment on this article from Rares were not answered. The popular Sockjig Sneaker Podcast host Sockjig posted on Twitter, "Yeezy 350, and then Foam Runners and Slides were truly the lifeblood of a lot of mall consignment businesses," which was retweeted by the company. I suppose they'll have to expand their Panda Express brand.