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Adidas confirms its Kanye West partnership is “under review”
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 7 October 2022
Adidas has confirmed that it is reviewing its business partnership with Kanye West, who has been busy of late dissing the sportswear brand with which he has had a pretty long alliance.
“Adidas has always been about creativity, innovation, and supporting athletes and artists to achieve their vision”, the firm said in a statement yesterday. “The Adidas Yeezy partnership is one of the most successful collaborations in our industry’s history”.
“We are proud of our team that has worked tirelessly throughout our collaboration with [West] and the iconic products that were born from it”, it went on. “We also recognise that all successful partnerships are rooted in mutual respect and shared values”.
“After repeated efforts to privately resolve the situation”, the statement concluded, “we have taken the decision to place the partnership under review. We will continue to co-manage the current product during this period”.
West switched allegiances from Nike to Adidas in 2013, with the first trainers under the Adidas Yeezy brand being launched in 2015. Which means Adidas has now been working with the rapper for nearly a decade, an achievement that should probably be recognised with some sort of Nobel prize. Though I guess it made a lot of cash along the way.
As recently as August, Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted told CNBC that its West partnership has “had a tremendous impact globally for us. Kanye is our most important partner worldwide. We have a very, very good relationship with him. We communicate with him on a very ongoing basis. And we’re very proud of that relationship”.
But, it seems that relationship has definitely now soured, presumably in part at least because of West’s public criticism of the sportswear brand. He responded to the Adidas statement with an Instagram post stating: “FUUUUUUCK ADIDAS I AM ADIDAS”.
The current deal between Adidas and West was seemingly meant to run through to 2026, but yesterday’s statement presumably suggests it’s likely to end much sooner than that.
The rapper, of course, also recently ended his fashion alliance with Gap, and has hinted that he might open up his own retail business via which to sell his Yeezy clothing nonsense. So, that’s something to look forward to.
