Kanye West’s worst nightmare
Adidas is working on new ‘Yezees’
11/10/2022, 7:43 PM
Adidas sent its advertising icon to the desert, but it wants to continue using its ideas. Yeezy models developed by rapper Kanye West are sorely absent from the current collection. It could be different in 2023.
“Kanye West’s worst nightmare” could become a reality as early as next year: Adidas is currently working through “all options” to re-brand its Yeezy design without the rapper. Kanye West’s Yeezy will continue to be sold under a new name after the Adidas label split with the rapper. It reports “Business Insider” and calls it: “Kanye’s worst nightmare”.
According to him, Adidas could release a shoe with a different name as early as 2023 with a design ‘inspired’ by West’s Yeezies. Legally, this would probably be possible without problems: In a meeting on Wednesday, CFO Harm Olmeier is said to have confirmed that the company has the designs that West created during its partnership with Adidas.
“Adidas is the sole owner of all registered design rights to existing products,” he said. “We want to exercise these rights by 2023.” Pressed by reporters in a later question-and-answer session, Ohmyer backtracked with concrete plans, but insisted that the designs were the company’s intellectual property. Now work your way through all the options.
“Clear Competition”
The West will not like it. Yes, as West calls himself now, June had a similar problem with Adidas. Subsequently, the company released Adelets similar to “Yeezy Slides,” which it calls “fake Yeezy made by Adidas itself.” Yet he threatened in a post that has since been deleted: “I will no longer participate in this candid copy.” In total, the Yeezy collection includes 14 different shoes—except for Vest’s slides, for which he’s the only one who holds a patent.
Adidas and Kanye West began their extremely profitable but difficult collaboration in 2013. After the musician made an anti-Semitic statement in October, the group eventually ended the collaboration. Whether Yeezys’ design generates as much hype without the celebrity behind it remains to be seen.
