YEEZY Gap Begins National Rollout. It Gives Me Nightmares
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What is the fashion industry saying about last weekend’s YEEZY Gap release in Gap’s NYC Times Square store — and about the future of the entire deal? The retailer announced it was expanding the physical offering to 45 of its stores across the U.S. at once. If it happned, it’s quiet time on the Internet.
Highsnobiety
Without judging, Highsnobiety says that Kanye has entirely subverted the brand. They title their new analysis Why the YEEZY Gap Collaboration Is a Truly Historic Moment in Fashion.
We quote: “The collection whose imagery is chock full of edge, darkness, and downright menace was released by the GAP. Let me rephrase that — it was released by the motherfucking GAP, the gold medal Olympic champion of staid mall Americana, the most inoffensive, mind-numbingly bland brand that has ever graced the face of Earth.”
Now maybe this is one more reason why Gap fired CEO Sonia Syngal after 2½ years at the helm. We doubt it’s that simple, but it can be said that Ye’s major difficulties doing anything on a schedule — which is the wheaties GAP and most of big retail runs on — didn’t help the red ink in Gap Inc. headquarters.
Much of the industry — who was super enthused about the partnership initially [not AOC; just sayin] but the most ardent fans of the deal — now question exactly what Kanye and his posse can deliver.
Gap Inc. Revenue Is $46 Million a Day, About 25% from Gap Brand
Ye was hootin that YEEZY Gap sold $14 million woth of black hoodies when they dropped — and that may be true. Gap refused to comment.
But let’s be clear that Gap Inc. sells $46 million worth of clothes every day and Gap stores is estimated to be about a quarter of the total. Depending on how many days the black hoodie collected revenue — and considering all the fanfare that was pent up waiting for it — and countless websites in America promoting it, $14 million may have been great or disappointing. We don’t know.
Ye says it broke all records for sales in one day. But Kanye can be quite like his much-admired pal Donald Trump. Exaggeration is fundamental to the big sale. We just don’t know the facts.
Ye says they only ran the commercial once. But everyone from Vogue to Business Insider was promoting it. And yes, Gap does have an affiliate program, and everybody wanted a piece of the action. The question is was it worth it to the affiliates.
It’s difficult for Ye to process the idea that bloggers and large websites out there — like even ELLE magazine — are delivering customers to Yeezy Gap to be part of the action.
That may be a good thing, because magazines and websites like Highsnobiety need revenue. But for Kanye to think that only his reputation, prodigious talent and one commercial sold his alleged $14 million worth of Perfect Black Hoodies is the typical analysis from a meglomaniac. Lots of little people make things happen, Ye.
Other analysis out this week on YEEZY Gap offers differing views of the business opportunity. The Complex article is quite good.
Chaos and Creation: Inside the Making of Yeezy Gap New York Times
Will Yeezy Save Gap Complex
YEEZY Gap Gives Me Nightmares
I’m far and away not a Gap customer. But I do get bad dreams just looking at this YEEZY Gap Engineered by Balenciaga images. Years ago, a guy dressed exactly like Ye’s above, tried to kill me over my support for Planned Parenthood. I’ll never forget that black-stocking face flying across the hood of my car and onto the windshield, after making my life hell for almost a year.
He also was wearing a black hoodie — but make no mistake, he was a white guy. And of course, we have the Guardians from HULU’s Handmaid’s Tale, keeping all the women in line. When Kanye was running for president in 2020 and talking about shutting down Planned Parenthood to end abortion rights for women. Kanye bought into all the right-wing propaganda about IUDs being murder and also Plan B. He spread more disinformation about women’s reproductivehealth than Donald Trump — and that is damn difficult.
It occurs to me that white nationalists might really like YEEZY Gap, as it’s so dystopian. From polo shirts and khakis to YEEZY Gap. Now that might be just too obviousa deviation from their ‘all American college guy’ carrying tiki torches while shouting “Jews will not replace us”.
But nothing feels like an over-reaction at this point. I can see white nationalists making YEEZY Gap their own. THAT would be one heck of a headache for Gap Inc.
Just yesterday, Rolling Stone had an article: Neo-Nazi Marine Plotted Mass Murder, Rape Campaigns with Group, Feds Say. They wrote: “While tasked with protecting the nation, Matthew Belanger was plotting a killing spree against minorities and to rape “white women to increase the production of white children,” according to federal prosecutors.”
The far-right neo-Nazi America group is called “Rapekrieg.”
I think many younger kids — think Uvalde — will be terrified by Kanye’s dystopian Gap garb. I honestly hope they don’t see it or the ads either. I do want to see Gap thrive again financially. So it’s not as if I want this project to fail. I just don’t understand why it has to be so dark, when America is already so dark.
Actually, maybe I’m not overreacting. DesignTaxi says that in the new YEEZY Gap video game you shoot white doves out of the sky. If you fail to kill them, YOU lose speed and fall to the ground from the sky.
I don’t think this is true, but I haven’t played the game. I watched it being played on YouTube and no avatars caught any doves. There were doves flying around. And I saw no doves being shot from the sky. It didn’t look like much to me. But then, I am not the YEEZY Gap customer, as I keep saying. The idea of dead peace birds really upset me for the last 15 minutes, though.
Just to explain how deeply I am affected by Jan. 6 and all the right-wing rhetoric about controlling women’s bodies, I actually woke up from a deep sleep last summer and saw an apparition of Sen. Lindsey Graham, standing in the doorway. There was a soft light shining over his head and I could see that he was holding a huge syringe, as he stood there staring at me. It was very clear to me as I tried to process this ‘dream state’ that Lindsey Graham intended to kill me with a lethal injection.
As he walked towards me, I woke up. Wow, what a night that was. ~ Anne
