Adidas After Yeezy

The partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was the stuff of sneakerhead legend—and its demise has the shoe company scrambling to replace nearly half of its profits.

Millions of pairs of unsold Yeezys are sitting in purgatory, stacked in warehouses from the US to China. Sneakers—some looking like cozy turtleneck sweaters for your feet, others like they’ve grown teeth on their soles or solidified into pillowy clouds—that once would’ve sold out in limited-edition drops, often flipped for much more on StockX and Goat, now await their fate seven months after one of the biggest corporate meltdowns in history.

Their owner, Adidas AG, couldn’t decide what to do with all the tarnished merchandise created by the man who was, until recently, its most prominent business partner: Kanye West, who now goes by Ye. The total value of these sneakers: about $1.3 billion.

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