Ye Doesn’t Own His Sneaker Designs. So What Happens Next?

On Oct. 25, Adidas officially announced that it had terminated its deal with Ye. The decision came after a continuous avalanche of controversies surrounding the artist formerly known as Kanye West that began with the debut of a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt during his Yeezy Season 9 show at Paris Fashion Week, and continued with a string of public antisemitic remarks.

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful, and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect, and fairness,” read the official statement released by Adidas.

Further along in the four-paragraph statement, Adidas asserted that while it will cease production of all Yeezy-related products, it remains the “sole owner of all design rights to existing products as well as previous and new colorways under the partnership.” Despite maintaining ownership of the designs, Ye still owns the Yeezy trademark, which means Adidas could continue to reproduce his designs, but they wouldn’t be able to use the Yeezy branding. While it doesn’t seem likely that Adidas will do that any time soon, it does pose the question: Will Adidas continue to produce Yeezy or Yeezy-inspired designs?

“I think what we could see is Adidas keeping those designs in its archive and bringing them out in the future,” says Susan Scafidi of Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute. “I do think, and this is why it was important for them to claim ownership of those designs, that we will see Adidas designs based on the look and feel of Ye.”

Adidas is just one of the many companies severing their ties with Ye following his ongoing antisemetic remarks. Balenciaga, who Ye has supported openly, calling its creative director Demna his “straight husband,” and Gap—who just five months ago placed Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga pop-ups in cities like New York and LA—also stopped working with Ye and discontinued sales of his products. Despite this, Scafidi believes that, from a business perspective, there is still an opportunity for Ye to find success in the fashion world independently. 

“Ye has just graduated from fashion higher education. That is to say, he’s just graduated from Gap and Adidas. If he and his team have been smart along the way, and I suspect they have, he’s been able to observe up close exactly how all of this is done,” says Scafidi. “Is it easy to set up your own supply chains, to find the factories, to figure out the shipping and channels of distribution, to create brick and mortar stores, to create all of that infrastructure? No, it’s not easy. But we’re talking about Yeezy. If anyone can do it, it would be Ye.”

Big corporations like Adidas and Gap will go on without Ye, despite the massive cultural impact that his collaborative relationship had. It’s likely that Ye will continue his fashion endeavors independently, something he has long said he strived to do in the first place. Given that Adidas owns the designs and Ye owns the trademark, how will each entity move forward? To make sense of the situation, we spoke with Scafidi, who detailed what Ye can and can’t do with his designs, the precedent this situation has on future brand partnerships, and more. Read our full conversation below. 

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.