Kanye West announced that he is ending his tumultuous two-year collaboration with the Gap due to “serious disobedience.”
West’s lawyer, Nicholas Gravante, claimed that the retailer broke their agreement by failing to open branded Yeezy stores and distributing his clothing as originally intended, among other things, leaving West with “no choice but to end their collaboration,” according to a statement released on Thursday.
According to Gravante, who co-chairs the litigation team at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, “Gap’s considerable noncompliance with its contractual commitments has been costly.” “Ye will now swiftly advance to make up for a lost time by creating Yeezy retail locations,” said the rapper.
An inquiry for comment from Gap (GPS) did not immediately receive a response. Early trading saw a 3% decline in shares.
Following the partnership’s announcement in June 2020, the struggling retailer received a much-needed boost in significance. For instance, a $200 jacket created by West that could only be purchased online became an instant hit.
According to The Wall Street Journal, West also claimed that Gap was forced to sell 40% off Yeezy Gap products in its retail locations, although this hasn’t happened.
In recent months, the relationship deteriorated. The gap was reprimanded by West, sometimes known as Ye, for not paying attention to him. The Journal quoted him as saying in a now-deleted Instagram post, “You have to actually give me the position to be Ye and let me do what I’m thinking, or I have to do the thinking someplace else.”
The separation was “not wholly unexpected,” according to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, and it wouldn’t have a negative financial impact on Gap’s bottom line.
“Gap is a conservative business with a tired brand that typically avoids taking risks. Kanye, on the other hand, is a bold inventor who enjoys upsetting the status quo “Saunders penned. “While Kanye could have given Gap some vigor, frustrations were unavoidable due to the conflict between the two visions. Kanye was simply too aggressive for Gap in certain aspects.”
It was “time for me to go it alone,” West recently told Bloomberg, adding that he would work to “create the new industry” and would no longer have businesses “standing in between me and the audience.”
Leave a Reply