Kanye West to revamp his footwear offerings

By

Kate Dingwall

Published
Feb 17, 2017

Kanye West has uncovered his much-anticipated new sneaker collaboration with Adidas. This marks his first new sneaker since 2014's Yeezy Boost 350.

At Wednesday’s Yeezy Season 5 presentation, models wore several colorways of a never-before-seen Yeezy sneaker. If released, this sneaker will mark the second sneaker style by West with Adidas. The release date has not yet been disclosed, although fashion press is speculating that the sneaker will be released in fall of 2017.

Kanye West’s sneaker offerings have seen astounding success since Kanye West first paired up with Adidas in 2013. The Yeezy Boost 750 retails for $350, but sell for an average of $1,200 and $2,185 in the resell markets. Ebay disclosed to High Snobiety that as of August of 2016, the highest recorded Boost 750 sale was for $10,099. Subsequently, Adidas shares of the secondary market have increased by 3000% between 2015 and 2016, just after the shoe was released.

The sneaker's success is largely based on the hype – products are released in such exclusive numbers (season 3 only released 9,000 versions of the sneaker), that consumers go into a frenzy in trying to acquire a sneaker.

The shoe’s releases create a hysteria amongst followers – each updated version of the sneaker is released in a limited-distribution of retailers across the country. In brick-and-mortar locations of both Adidas and independent boutiques, the opportunity to purchase the sneakers is chosen via lottery system. Hardly a release goes buy where the sneakers not only sell out in a matter of seconds, but crash the online e-tail sites.