Kanye West’s Yeezy brand is expected to top $1.5 billion in sales this year.
The 42-year-old rapper-turned-designer created his exclusive footwear brand in partnership with Adidas in 2015, and went on to unveil his first apparel collection, named ‘Yeezy Season 1’ that same year, and now the line is predicted to take in a staggering $1.5 billion worth of sales in 2019 alone, financial bible Forbes has predicted.
And Kanye – who still owns 100 percent of the Yeezy brand – compared the range to luxury Lamborghini vehicles, and revealed he loves to create products and “problem-solve”.
He said: “I am a product guy at my core. To make products that make people feel an immense amount of joy and solve issues and problems in their life, that’s the problem-solving that I love to do.
“There’s a little bit of Lamborghini in everything I do. Yeezy is the Lamborghini of shoes.”
Before his Yeezy partnership, the ‘Golddigger’ hitmaker designed shoes for Bathing Ape and Nike in 2012, however after five years and three silhouettes of sneakers, Kanye ended their partnership because Nike failed to grant him royalties.
Opening up about the Nike Air Yeezy II release in 2012, Kanye told Forbes magazine: “It was the first shoe to have the same level of impact as an Air Jordan, and I wanted to do more. And at that time Nike refused to give celebrities royalties on their shoes.”
Kanye went on to have his successful long-running partnership with Adidas after they agreed to pay him royalties, and the rapper likes to make limited quantities of his trainer releases because it helps the brand stay relevant and “sell”.
He added: “What makes celebrity products sell so well is scarcity. So if they make it too broadly available, I think it crashes the business model.”
And the ‘Life of Pablo’ hitmaker went on to insist that there is still lots more to come from his Yeezy and Adidas partnership.
Kanye added: “We’ve yet to see all of the beauty that would be manifested through this partnership. We’ve only experienced a small glimmer of light.”
Meanwhile, the ‘Bound 2’ rapper is keen to launch his own religious organisation based on his weekly concerts, which he calls Sunday Service, and has reportedly bought a plot of land near his home in Los Angeles so that he can build “pods” for his followers to stay in for a “few weeks at a time” while they focus on his new modern faith. As reported by The Sauce, his faith is massively important to him and he thinks this is the way to engage young people.
