The Yeezy x GAP Collection Is Already Dividing Fans

Yeezy x GAP collaborations are a lot like London buses. That is to say, you can wait what feels like forever for one that’s been imminently “due” for the last hour to finally arrive, and then – when it does – the experience is so awful, so acutely painful, that your only real options are to either laugh or to cry. Or, in the most extreme cases, both.

Now, that may seem a little strong. But, based on the immediate reaction from Yeezy fans and the streetwear-slash-fashion community more broadly – I don’t think I’ve ever heard mention of a GAP fan, specifically – it certainly doesn’t seem like we're alone in desperately wanting to stop the ride and get off before the journey is even close to over.

Posted earlier this week on the official GAP Instagram, the first look at the collaboration – now, incidentally, the only post on the American label’s channel – shows just one item: a bright blue jacket, billowing in the wind like one of those AirDancers with the flailing arms you see in the car parks of secondhand car dealerships across America.

And, while we’ve not seen much – just one garment, just one front-facing point of view – there are a few things worth noting here about the jacket itself and about what it might mean for the collection as a whole.

Firstly, there’s the materials: it’s hard to say, given the GAP's decidedly minimal approach to posting the teaser without any kind of caption, but it looks to be recycled nylon. Which, in a way, of course, is good. In another way, though, the fact that it looks recycled is really a kinder way of saying that it looks flimsy, synthetic, and – well – kind of cheap. Secondly, there’s the silhouette: the bomber-style jacket looks to be padded and seems to have no closure mechanism whatsoever – no zip, no buttons, no poppers. Not exactly cold-weather apparel.

So, that being said, it does have some appeal. It is, at the very least, “interesting.” Potentially, anyway.

Looking at the comments – which, at the time of writing, seem suspiciously low in number considering the content and the size of both brands’ platform – it’s fair to say that opinion is divided.

Replies range from the obscure – “this looks like something a character for dragon ball Z would wear” and “That looks like something Marty McFly would wear,” both of which could be a positive or negative, depending on your point of view – to the inevitable “Yeezy season approaching” and copious goat emoji responses, right through to the downright scathing (but not exactly incorrect) references to lifejackets and Macy’s parade balloons.

In a poll that we posted on Twitter, we asked users for their thoughts on copping the upcoming collection. 47.6% of people gave an emphatic thumbs down based on what little we've seen so far. Conversely, 27.8% of respondents were considerably more enthusiastic in voting yes. That left 24.6% in the undecided column – a group pretty well summed up by one astute and succinct reply: "As long as the rest of the collection doesn’t look like that blue icing bag jacket."

It's not exactly an even split, but it does paint a potentially more positive picture of fans' attitudes toward the collection. The "Yes" camp may be lagging by 20% right now – but that, if you'll excuse the accidental wordplay, is a gap that could easily be closed.

The teasing also comes at an interesting time for the GAP. That the first reveal comes during the same week that the brand has also announced the impending closure of nineteen UK stores – and a loss of $740 million USD over the course of the pandemic – does not feel like a coincidence.

Cynically, those rightly questioning why the proposed GAP x Telfar collaboration was dropped in favour of the Yeezy collection – particularly when the latter has been so divisive with only one piece revealed – need only to look at those numbers to understand why the publicity and more-or-less guaranteed sales from a Kanye-led release might appeal to a brand in trouble in a way that working with a relatively young and considerably less mass-market designer might not.

Still, one can’t help but mourn for what might have been: what someone like Telfar Clemens might have been able to do with the resources and visibility of a brand like the GAP and how that might have paved the way for other younger creatives to look to them as a potential force for good.

Although it does mark something of a departure, this kind of collaboration isn’t a risk for a brand like the GAP: at this point, Yeezy is tried and tested – it has a veritable army of fans ready to drop cash on anything that the label does and an army of bots, probably even bigger, ready to hoover up what’s left. The collaboration is a guaranteed cash cow. And who knows: it may yet prove to be a push for something bigger and better – an arbiter of change. That would be an incredible legacy, as far as collaborative collections go.

But of course, the GAP never claimed to be a leading light. It’s the GAP, you know? A brand from which you can always expect, if nothing else, the expected. It’s about comfort and familiarity, not about progress. It’s 2021 and the GAP is still just floating along being the GAP. This jacket alone ought to make sure they stay above water for the foreseeable future – even if they’re just bobbing along with the waves.