Adidas and Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, collaborated in 2013. The nine-year marriage ended up being both financially successful and challenging. After a string of public rebukes for his antisemitic statements, Adidas eventually terminated ties with the fashion designer and artist on October 25.
Ye and Adidas management argued in front of the public on several occasions. Ye angrily opposed the company’s June introduction of slides that resembled the Yeezy Slide and referred to it as “a fake Yeezy made by Adidas themselves.”
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Kanye said on Instagram, in reaction to images of the Adidas Adilette slip, “I’m not standing for this blatant copying anymore.” Ye has also criticized Adidas for neglecting to create physical venues exclusively for his brand, establishing “Yeezy Day” without consulting him, and branding sneaker launches on its own.
During a teleconference to discuss quarterly results on Wednesday, Adidas Chief Financial Officer Harm Ohlmeyer emphasized that the company owns the designs it made in partnership with Ye.
Kanye said, “All design rights registered to current items are the exclusive property of Adidas. They declared, “We want to use these rights as early as 2023.”
In response to questions from reporters during a later Q&A session, Ohlmeyer would only reiterate that Adidas owns “all the versions and new colorways.
If these 1050s dropped without Yeezy branding, you’d still cop right?
adidas should just Red October shock drop them now pic.twitter.com/rcl6IVGxDi
— sockjig (@sockjig) November 9, 2022
The Yeezy Slide, for which Ye has the patent, may be an exception.
If the business continued to sell Yeezy merchandise despite the artist’s withdrawal, a reporter questioned Ohlmeyer about the company’s reputational damage.
Ohlmeyer stated, “We are considering all the possibilities. We’ll be more explicit when the time is perfect, we promise.
The Results of Adidas Rebranding Yeezy
Sneaker Twitter’s response to Adidas renaming Yeezy is that while the shoes will probably sell, the frenzy that they previously generated with Ye’s involvement will likely not return.
Adidas predicted a $247 million blow to its bottom line this year when it revealed its breakup with Ye. The earnings report released on Wednesday matched that prediction. Ohlmeyer noted that this year’s anticipated sales for the firm will be down by about $502 million.
However, as a result of the royalties and marketing expenses it will no longer incur to maintain the Yeezy business, Adidas will save around $302 million in 2023. Kanye criticized Nike, and its CEO Mark Parker at the time, when he switched from Nike to Adidas in November 2013. Parker was the company’s CEO at the time.
