The fashion brand and the rapper have had an intense love affair. But after Ye’s White Lives Matter shirt and antisemitic comments,
the company may need to be heartless.In all the noise that has been generated by and about Kanye West, or Ye, as he is now known,
over the last 10 days — ever since he disrupted Paris Fashion Week with a new YZY show, then disrupted his show with a “White Lives
Matter” T-shirt, then embarked on a public flood of attacks against anyone who dared to criticize his message that then escalated to
antisemitic screeds on social media and Fox News — one voice has been particularly deafening.Balenciaga, the brand whose show Ye
opened on Oct. 2 with a surprise modeling appearance; the brand he collaborated with during his ill-fated Gap adventure and whose
Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga products can still be found on store shelves; the brand whose designer, Demna, has described
texting with Ye several times a day and who attended the YZY show with Cédric Charbit, Balenciaga’s chief executive, has not said a
word about his statements. Even as Ye’s posts and avowals have become evermore incendiary.
As Serge Carreira, a lecturer on the luxury industry at Sciences Po university in Paris, said, “the whole industry is, in a way, guilty of
complacency.” But when it comes to Ye, in thrall to his celebrity and codependent relationship with fashion, it is Balenciaga with
which Ye has conducted the most enduring affair.
Up until now, that has worked to both of their advantages. Ye gave Balenciaga the aura of relevance and a new audience; Balenciaga
provided the high-fashion embrace Ye craved. Together, they became a viral sensation. For Balenciaga, however, it could turn out to be
a very dangerous liaison indeed. Not to mention a case study on the problems of mixing business and friendship as disparate creative
worlds meld into one.
The issue is that for Balenciaga, “blaming him could be considered as a betrayal,” Mr. Carreira said, not just personally but because Ye
has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At the same time, he said, “silence could be perceived as a support of the indefensible ideas
he is promoting.”
Those ideas are most likely why Adidas, whose almost 10-year partnership with Yeezy has been extraordinarily lucrative for both sides
(even though he has publicly criticized the company and its executives), has issued a statement acknowledging their past work
together but noting the partnership is “under review.” They are probably why Instagram and Twitter have locked Ye’s accounts, why
JP Morgan has apparently stepped down as the Yeezy company’s banker and why Balenciaga’s failure to respond is particularly
striking.This is especially so in the context of social and cultural changes over the last five years, in which luxury brands have issued
apology after apology for repeated missteps, lest they be seen as condoning prejudice or perpetrating a history of elitism and racism.
(Balenciaga is owned by Kering, the French luxury group, which is a public entity.)
Kanye West at the “Donda by Kanye West” listening event in Atlanta in July 2021. Credit…Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Universal
Music Group“I can only assume many people are wrong-footed, confused and possibly waiting — hoping? — for an apology of sorts,”
said Luca Solca, a luxury analyst at the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein. But, he continued: “This reminds me of John Galliano. I
see a one-way street implication.”