Kanye West to sell Yeezy Gap Balenciaga items for $20 as he launches Ye24 presidential run

The rapper previously ran a failed bid for the White House in 2020

Kanye West has been in the news after he made a series of anti-Semitic comments. Adidas has severed ties with the rapper. AP

West at the BET Awards 2022 in Los Angeles in June. Reuters

The rapper at the Givenchy spring/summer 2023 fashion show in Paris in October. AFP

West performs at Rolling Loud New York at Citi Field in September. Getty Images / AFP

With his former wife Kim Kardashian at the WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards in 2019. AP

West on stage at the Coachella festival in California in 2019. AP

The rapper holds a rally for his presidential bid in North Charleston, South Carolina, in July 2020. Reuters

West wears a Make America Great Again cap to meet president Donald Trump in the White House in 2018. AFP

He watches basketball team the Golden State Warriors play the Boston Celtics in March. Photo: USA Today Sports

With Kim Kardashian and basketball player J Cole at the 69th NBA All-Star Game in Chicago in 2020. AFP

West and Julia Fox, who briefly dated him after his split with Kim Kardashian, at Paris Fashion Week. Getty Images

The rapper performs during the closing ceremony for the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada. AFP

West and Kim Kardashian with Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni in Entebbe. AP

He was a Trump supporter. AP

West on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in Los Angeles. AP

He performs at Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, in 2010. Rich-Joseph Facun / The National

Running for president in North Charleston. AP

West takes the mic from singer Taylor Swift as she accepts an MTV Video Music Award 2009. He said Beyonce should have won instead. AP Photo

The rapper with his mother Donda in 2007. Getty Images

He arrives for a benefit concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2016. EPA

The rapper formerly known as Kanye West is not done with his US presidential dreams. Following his failed bid for the White House in 2020, in which he received a total 70,000 votes, Ye has announced he's running again in 2024.

“It’s simple ... It’s just we’re moving towards the future," he tells celebrity news site X17 during a tour of his Los Angeles workshop.

In the video, in which employees can be seen sitting behind sewing machines, garments are laid out on tables and spread across the floor, many of them with the label Ye24.

"I’ve cut up 100 hoodies, from Yeezy, from Balenciaga, from stuff we did with Gap, from stuff we did with adidas, and everything we do is gonna cost $20,” Ye explains.

“We need to make sure that everyone can receive the same level of cut, the same level of food, same level of water and the same level of education.”

Ye signed a 10-year deal with Gap in 2020 to create a line of clothing under the Yeezy Gap brand. The first product from the line — a blue puffer jacket — sold out within hours of the launch last year.

In January, Ye, who has a long-running relationship with Balenciaga's creative director Demna, announced the two were launching a Yeezy Gap X Balenciaga line. The first collection was unveiled in February, with items starting at $120.

The Yeezy Gap X Balenciaga collection has been unveiled, and already there is a waiting list. All photos: Gap

Working with Balenciaga creative director Demna, Ye has created a line of oversized hoodies, T-shirts and denim that mixes his slouchy aesthetic with the brooding palette of Balenciaga.

The first release from the Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga collection featured eight pieces.

A dark-wash denim from the collection.

Announced in January, the collection's first pieces were revealed on Yeezy Gap and Farfetch's websites, complete with a dramatic countdown.

The Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga collection features several hoodies.

The collection is designed to be unisex.

A second release from the collection is expected later this year.

A jacket from the separate Yeezy Gap collection has been revisited in the Engineered by Balenciaga range.

A short-sleeve T-shirt from the Balenciaga collaboration.

The Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga collection mixes Ye's oversize silhouettes with Balenciaga's almost all-black palette.

The collection has been released for pre-order, but there is now a waiting list.

Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga will also offer dark, oversize tracksuits later this year.

The eight pieces unveiled are priced from $120 to $440.

A look from the Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga collection.

By September, however, Ye's lawyers said they were terminating the partnership with Gap, alleging the company had failed to meet its obligations by not selling Yeezy Gap-branded products at its outlets and failing to open dedicated stores for the brand.

Then, early in October, Ye put on a hugely controversial show on the sidelines of Paris Fashion Week where he wore a T-shirt with "White Lives Matter" on it, which drew widespread condemnation. He followed the furore with a series of controversial statements, including an outburst denounced as anti-Semitic.

A few days later, Balenciaga severed ties with the rapper last month, telling WWD it no longer had "any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist."

A week later, German sportswear retailer adidas announced it was also ending its hugely successful partnership with Ye over his offensive and anti-Semitic remarks.

Gap, too, said it was taking “immediate steps” to remove Yeezy Gap merchandise from its stores following Ye's controversial comments. The company also shut down its YeezyGap.com website, which now redirects back to the Gap homepage.

In the X17 video posted to YouTube on Monday, Ye was accompanied by far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, whom the rapper referred to as his campaign manager.

"This is Milo right here, working on the campaign,” Ye says in the video.

Yiannopoulos, a former writer at the right-wing website Breitbart, is known for his hateful stances on Islam, feminism and his association with anti-Semitic figures. He has been permanently banned from Twitter since 2016 following a series of controversial posts, and is barred from travelling to Australia following his comments about the horrific 2019 mosque massacre in New Zealand which left 50 people dead.

Ye, whose account was locked for an unspecified time by Twitter last month following the anti-Semitic comments, returned to the platform on Monday, posting "Shalom", the Hebrew word for "peace".