Adidas said Friday it would sell further items from the Yeezy range during August.
The next drop of Yeezy products will be available from Aug. 2 through digital channels only, including Adidas’ own website and its Confirmed app, as well as on the digital channels of selected retail partners. The release will be phased and will vary depending on location, the company said.
Adidas severed ties with longtime collaborator Kanye West, who helped design the Yeezy products, in October 2022, after the musician-turned-designer’s increasingly erratic behavior and a series of antisemitic and other offensive comments. The products to be sold next month were initiated in 2022, Adidas said.
Last year, after the end of its relationship with West, the company decided to go ahead with Yeezy product it had already ordered anyway in order to protect suppliers. But what to do with it — with an estimated 1.2 billion euros’ worth of product planned — was an ongoing dilemma for the sportswear giant.
Various solutions were proposed, including destroying, recycling or donating the products. But the brand decided to sell the Yeezy stock instead and donate part of the proceeds to organizations fighting hatred, racism and antisemitism.
Some of the profits from the Yeezy products sold next month will go to various U.S.-based initiatives that combat racism and antisemitism, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Philonise and Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change and the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.
Adidas also provides further information on the work of these initiatives on its own website and will also add blue pins to some of the upcoming Yeezy sales. The pins come from a campaign by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which uses them as symbols of the fight against prejudice against Jews. Some of the proceeds of Adidas’ sales will also still go to West.
Selling the Yeezy product appears to have been the right decision for Adidas. Earlier this week, the company reported preliminary results for the second quarter and slightly raised its outlook for the year, noting that these had been “positively impacted” by the decision to start selling Yeezy inventory in May.
Media reports suggest that in May, the company received orders worth more than half a billion euros and that at least one of the 15 Yeezy models available was sold out within hours.
Adidas now says revenues in 2023 will only decline at a mid-single-digit rate rather than at a high-single-digit rate. Adidas also scaled down expected losses from 700 million to 400 million euros.
Earlier this year, the company said it could lose around 1.2 billion euros if it decided not to sell the Yeezy product. Footwear sector experts have suggested the collaboration could have been making Adidas between 1.5 billion euros and 2 billion euros a year, generating as much as around 40 percent of the company’s annual profits due to the line’s favorable pricing.
Market analysts say that, so far, Adidas is performing better than expected but that they also believe the company’s forecast for 2023 is too conservative, especially given what appears to be continued popularity of the Yeezy line.
“If successful, potential future Yeezy drops would further improve the company’s results,” a statement from Adidas on the preliminary second-quarter results, concluded.
Adidas second-quarter results will be announced Aug. 3.