Kanye West’s Biggest High Fashion Connection Has Cut Ties

After a tumultuous few weeks of Kanye West’s verbal attacks on everyone from a fashion editor to George Floyd to the Jewish community, Kering, corporate parent of fashion house Balenciaga, has severed all ties with the multihyphenate. “Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist,” a representative from Kering said in a statement to WWD.

The relationship between West and Balenciaga dates back to 2015, when West recruited the brand’s creative director, Demna, for his Yeezy season 1 creative team and championed the then Vetements designer in an exclusive for Vanity Fair. In 2021, while amongst other celebrities including Bella Hadid, Salma Hayek, and Lil Baby, the musician sat with his entire face masked as the fashion house showcased its first haute couture collection in Paris since the company’s founder, Cristóbal Balenciaga, bid his farewell to the business over half a century ago.

Then came Yeezy x Gap. After launching the line with a series of bubble jackets, first in blue, then black, then red, West began exclusively wearing Balenciaga and raising eyebrows with a slew of face-covering masks. Toward the end of 2021, as the conversation around Kim Kardashian and West’s divorce swirled, he assumed the name Ye, and Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga was released at the beginning of 2022 with little warning. After two popular drops, West redesigned a Gap store in Times Square, which would serve as the first brick-and-mortar space for the line before Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga was unveiled in Gap stores across America. Last month West and Gap ended their contracted 10-year partnership just over two years in after West accused the company of breaching their agreement.

During a recent interview with Piers Morgan, West apologized for the “hurt and confusion” he caused with his antisemitic comments, citing his own trauma as the cause of his harmful language. But the apology came a little too late, as companies associated with the artist have already begun cutting ties—Adidas also recently placed its partnership with West “under review.” Kering’s statement comes just over a week after Candace Owens publicized through social media that the artist had received a letter from JPMorgan Chase—dated September 20—informing him that its banking relationship with his company would cease. West’s suspension from both Twitter and Instagram, for violating anti-hate-speech policies with his antisemitic commentary, was also announced early last week.