Kanye West ends fashion partnership with Gap

nme.com:

Kanye West has ended his partnership with the fashion company Gap.West’s lawyers sent a letter to the brand notifying them that the rapper would formally sever ties with it, terminating the 10-year agreement they first established in 2020.

The letter, sent on West’s behalf, claimed that Gap had failed to meet the terms of its contract.Nicholas Gravante, who serves as one of West’s attorneys, elaborated on this claim in a statement to Pitchfork. “Gap left Ye no choice but to terminate their collaboration,” Gravante wrote, “because of Gap’s substantial noncompliance.” According to West’s team, Gap failed to deliver on its obligation to sell 40 per cent of the rapper’s Yeezy Gap items in brick-and-mortar stores, and failed to open retail stores dedicated to his products by mid-2023.In their own letter sent to employees, Gap confirmed that the partnership had been terminated, writing that while the brand agreed on West’s creative vision, “how we work together to deliver this vision is not aligned.” The letter, attributed to Gap CEO Mark Breitbard, went on to argue that the fashion company had upheld their terms of the contract.“Throughout this partnership, we have upheld our commitments, and the teams have done so with the utmost integrity, navigating obstacles and demonstrating incredible resolve,” Breitbard wrote.

While no further collaborations will be released, Gap still reserves the rights to sell West’s existing Yeezy products before dropping the brand name.Hours after the news broke, West appeared in an interview on CNBC, where he claimed that Gap had excluded him from decisions around the product’s price points and aesthetics.