Weeks after Kanye West’s White Lives Matter Controversy and days after he was banned for anti-semitic comments from across social media and after an outburst calling President Joe Biden the r-word, Kanye has lost another lucrative deal.
Luxury brand Balenciaga’s deal with Kanye West has reportedly ended. This is the second company to take such steps since the rapper’s downward spiral earlier this month. On Friday, several fashion sites reported that Kering, the parent company for Balenciaga, has confirmed the end of its relationship with Ye.
“Balenciaga no longer has any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist,” Business of Fashion and Women’s Wear Daily quoted the French company.
Kanye’s collaboration with Balenciaga was called Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga. The collaboration came after Kanye’s 10-year deal with Gap in 2020 for their ‘Yeezy Gap’ line.
The line was set to earn $1 billion in sales by 2025, but that is nothing more than a dream as Gap pulled its deal with Kanye last week after he went off on rants about the executives and CEO “raping” and stealing his designs. Kanye had threatened to end the deal with Gap, but the company had taken the steps after the rapper went on to spar more controversy with his antisemitic comments and declared ‘war’ on the Jews.
The “Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga” collab was estimated to bring in close to a billion dollars by the end of 2023.
The latest development has raised questions about Kanye West’s relationship with Balenciaga’s CEO, Demna Gvasalia, which appeared to be close. During Paris Fashion Week, Kanye walked in Balenciaga’s show, and Demna was also spotted at Kanye’s “White Lives Matter” line debut.
The relationship between Balenciaga’s Demna and Kanye and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian also go a long way back, with the couple repping for the luxury fashion house long before his Yeezy collab.
In the meantime, it seems that the ending of the Balenciaga deal may not mean that Kanye’s relationship has deteriorated with the luxury brand, as Gap noted at the end of September that it was dropping its last Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga line. By all accounts, it seems that the line has come to a natural end of its life, as the Gap deal was the important link that kept it going.
At the end of September, the second and final Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga capsule went up on sale on the Yeezy Gap website. In a statement, Gap CEO Mark Breitbard had committed that the company would ensure that the remaining inventory went out until the end of the year, signaling that that was the end of the Balenciaga collab.
Kanye has not addressed the latest development.
