John Kim 
To say that Kanye West’s influence on the sneaker game is unmatched would be an understatement. No celebrity has moved the needle so powerfully for the world’s top two athletic footwear brands, which is why his jump from one to the other was such a significant industry move. As Kanye West and adidas gear up for the official release of the adidas Yeezy 750 Boost, which will launch first in NYC on February 14th at a select number of stores, let us walk back through time when Kanye’s sneaker releases made some noise.
Footwear and apparel brands recognized Kanye’s taste-making status early on, and these early collaborations/Friends and Family editions might have laid the groundwork for the massive success of his Nike and Louis Vuitton collaborations. In 2006, Nike hooked him up with a PE of the Air 180 that featured the graduation bear on the tongue and insole.
These shoes never released, but this was around the time Kanye’s career was firmly established thanks to two awesome records. What followed was an official collaboration in 2007 with A Bathing Ape and the infamous Bapesta, and a 2008 collaboration with Reebok on the S. Carter CL Low. While sneaker collectors paid attention to those works, neither stirred up mass hysteria like his later collections would.
In 2009, Nike and Kanye West teamed up for the brand’s first ever signature shoe for a non-athlete – the Air Yeezy. The sneaker drew inspiration from a number of iconic silhouettes of the past, but a there were a lot of new design elements that West implemented on his own. Kanye later revealed that his deal with Nike allowed him to design one pair of shoes every two years, and that an opportunity to do more was never given to him. Still the Air Yeezy release was considered by many to be the best sneaker release of the year, although some Jordan fanatics and purists pointed to the Space Jam 11 as the top prize.
The Air Yeezy released on April 4th, 2009 in the “Zen Grey” colorway and was followed in consecutive months by the “Blink” (May 2nd) and “Net” (June 6th). The retail price for each pair was $215, which at the time was incredibly high, and resale value skyrocketed to $1,000. Sneakers rarely fetched that high of a dollar amount (and this was before the PE craze), so many point to the original Yeezys as the pioneer for the high-priced sneaker aftermarket. Today, the Air Yeezy is valued between $2000 and $4000 (the “Blink” being the most valuable of the three).
Growing alongside the hype of the Air Yeezy was his debut collection with Louis Vuitton. In the collection was a series of newly designed silhouettes; the Jasper, Don, and Mr. Hudson was an amalgam of his own design concept and existing LV cues, and with prices starting at $840 and topping out at $1,140, the sneaker community didn’t exactly respond well to the design. The fact is, the shoes appealed more to the sneakerheads and those interested in hip-hop fashion, so Kanye did receive some criticism for jumping into an endeavor that might’ve alienated his core following
No sequel came from the original Kanye West x Louis Vuitton collaboration, but a few years later it seemed that Ye had a beef with the higher-ups. This feud apparently stemmed from Kanye being “marginalized” by the company, when the head of the brand questioned the need for a meeting with Kanye (the hip-hop star requested a meeting with him). Kanye, feeling rejected, went on to tell his U.S.-based followers to boycott the brand, and later took a shot by mentioning that the brand’s relevance was no longer felt in the fashion world.
In 2012, Kanye West and Nike released the sequel to the Air Yeezy – the Air Yeezy 2. The shoes were seen in a number of colorways of West’s feet, which buttered up the sneaker audience for this monumental sneaker. The June 2012 drop caused absolute mayhem around the world, with sneaker campouts growing in masses despite the overall production of the shoes being extremely low. Two game-changing color ways were part of the debut – a “Solar Red”, which features a black upper, a hot red lining, and a green-tinted glow-in-the-dark outsole, and a “Pure Platinum” which opted for a stone white upper.
Almost a year later, hints at an all-red pair of the Air Yeezy 2 began to drop. Kanye wore a pair on SNL in May of 2013, and rumored release dates inconjunction with the official release of the Yeezus album began to swirl around. The information was incorrect and Nike itself stepped forward to confirm that the assumed June 9th, 2013 was entirely untrue. Other “guesses” for an October release were made, but the days passed without any action. Finally, the shoes released exclusively through Nikestore on a Sunday afternoon in February, 2014 – a true quickstrike release.
Rumors of Kanye leaving Nike for adidas began in late 2013. It was truly a surprising turn of events considering how devoted of a Nike sneakerhead Kanye was himself (regularly seen wearing Air Jordans, Nike Flyknits, and other Nike Retros), and some ongoing rants about Nike during his Yeezus tour shows only confirmed the murmurs. Official word of the switch finally made its way out to the internet in November of 2013, and not much later the brand itself introduced Kanye to an auditorium of employees (the event was exclusive to adidas).
All signs pointed to a debut in February 2015; with The Grammy’s, NBA All-Star Weekend, and Fashion Week in NYC all coinciding in a short span in early/mid February, it seemed like a grand enough platform for Kanye to debut the shoe. Kanye was spotted wearing his adidas Yeezys during pre-Grammys sound checks and whatnot, while his close pal Ibn Jasper leaked the first clear image of the shoe (the first actual leak was on an airplane). Now, adidas is gearing up for the official release on Saturday, February 14th, with a special App built just for the occasion.
