Barring a dramatic shift in strategy - not impossible given the personalities involved - Gap has on its hands a successful but miniscule sub-brand, and is back to square one when it comes to rescuing the company itself. Balenciaga’s involvement is over as well, and there’s no word on what’s next for Yeezy Gap once the current collection sells through. Earlier this month, Sonia Syngal, the retailer’s chief executive under whom the Yeezy partnership was announced, exited the company abruptly. It’s clear that Gap’s board of directors aren’t happy. On some level, the disconnect comes off almost like an admission that no Yeezy fan was ever going to shop Gap’s main line, even if they had to visit the store to try on a hoodie. It’s as if Yeezy were an unrelated pop-up that happened to rent out vacant space in Gap stores.
#Kanye 2020 vision full#
The bags full of hoodies and oversized T-shirts are housed separately from Gap merchandise, in a room with walls and even the cash registers painted black. This disparate approach is visible in the Times Square store that was first to carry Yeezy Gap.
The Yeezy collection exists on a different website from Gap.com (meanwhile, Balenciaga hosted the collaboration on its main website). No mainline Gap product available today appears to have been influenced by Ye. Instead, Yeezy Gap has operated as an almost independent entity within Gap Inc. For a retailer of its size, the arrival of a creative force as high-profile as Ye should have been felt throughout the company. In January, Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia (now simply known as Demna) stepped in to create a three-way capsule - Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga, resulting in the collection released in stores this week.įor Gap, the slow rollout was the least of its problems. In its first 18 months, the partnership with Ye produced just two products - a puffer jacket and a cotton hoodie. A New York Times report last week pointed to trouble behind the scenes, with Yeezy Gap originally planning a meeting of aesthetics similar to J.Crew’s bet on Babenzien, only to head in a drastically different direction. Gap, on the other hand, sunk its resources into a much flashier collection that promised to be a clean break from its main assortment. A pair of wide-leg trousers - a silhouette Noah is known for - is making the rounds on menswear Twitter and Instagram. The better-known Babenzien received immediate - if not quite universal - praise from his debut collection that was released Monday. Gayot’s influence was felt first in stores and helped drive rising sales. The company was in a much deeper hole than Gap some questioned whether it had a future post-bankruptcy, or if it would be acquired by a licensing firm like its mall neighbour Brooks Brothers.
J.Crew’s big move was the less radical of the two - hiring a pair of well-regarded designers in Babenzien as well as Olympia Gayot in womenswear, and tasking each with subtly introducing trendier pieces that stuck close to the retailer’s core preppy product offering. What went right for J.Crew, and what went wrong for Gap? This was not a foregone conclusion two years ago. Only one appears to be going in the right direction. Less than a year later, in May 2021, J.Crew announced Babenzien, a former Supreme creative director with his own label, Noah, would design menswear for the retailer.įrom there, J.Crew and Gap took radically different paths. In 2020, Gap and the rapper then known as Kanye West formed a 10-year partnership, Yeezy Gap. The pandemic was a breaking point, with J.Crew filing for bankruptcy and Gap closing hundreds of stores.īoth retailers made their bid to change the narrative. Then it all fell apart: the clothing grew stale, the malls emptied out and fast fashion took over. The two brands have a similar backstory: each had a charmed run where they defined how millions of people dressed for much of the 1990s and 2000s. For Gap, it was the retail rollout of its collaboration with Yeezy and Balenciaga. At J.Crew, it was the debut collection of menswear creative director Brendon Babenzien. J.Crew and Gap both took big steps this week to turn long-hyped but little-seen comeback efforts into clothes that people can actually buy.
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