HE may have failed in his bid to become US President and his wife Kim Kardashian West may have filed for divorce, but there has been some good news for Kanye West. He is now a billionaire six times over, according to reports last month. And Sotheby’s have just announced that they are expecting a pair of West’s prototype Nike Yeezy 1 shoes to fetch more than $1m (£727,000) at auction.
What’s so special about these gutties then?
Gutties? Someone is showing their age. The rapper wore the Nike Yeezy 1 prototypes during his performance at the 50th Grammy award ceremony back in 2008, so they’re a small part of pop history.
And footwear history too, presumably?
Well, yes. That pair kicked off (sorry, not sorry) Kanye West’s hugely successful Yeezy sneaker and clothing brand. He didn’t make all those billions from music alone, you know. The Yeezy brand was launched in 2009 and saw West collaborate with Nike until 2013 when he switched to work with Adidas.
Sotheby’s say that Yeezy’s success as a fashion brand means that the Nike Air Yeezy I are among the most coveted sneakers among collectors.
“This pair is critical to the development of the Yeezy franchise, which has become one of the most important sneaker and lifestyle brands in history,” said Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s Head of Streetwear & Modern Collectables.
I’m more of a brogues man myself. But are you saying that there’s a big market for trainers these days?
I’d say so. The global market for sneakers (as the Americans call them) was valued at approximately $79bn (£57.5bn).
Did I hear the devil was involved in some way?
Ah, you’re getting mixed up with the “Satan Shoes”. They are a bootleg; modified Nike Air Max sneakers in black and red created by the gay rapper Lil Nas X in collaboration with Brooklyn art collective MSCHF. The number of pairs created was, you can probably guess, 666. They sold out in under a minute.
MSCHF claimed each pair of sneakers also contained a drop of human blood in the sole.
Hmm, sounds a health and safety nightmare. How did they go down?
There was a bit of a fuss. Nike quickly obtained a temporary restraining order and last week Nike and MSCHF settled out of court, with the latter agreeing to buy back the sneakers from their customers at their original $1,018 (£742) price.
Weren’t the Christian right in the US up in arms too?
Yes, high-profile political and religious leaders condemned the sneakers, with one pastor calling them “evil” and “heresy”.
Lil Nas X compounded the controversy by issuing an “apology” which quickly cut to a video for his latest song Montero: Call Me By Your Name in which he was seen lap-dancing for Satan before taking his throne.
“We all knew that some people would take the Satan element of this seriously,” MSCHF’s creative director Kevin Wiesner told CNN. “But I'm not sure we were entirely prepared for how much of a furore it would cause.”
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