Yeezy x GAP's Round Jacket & What's Next for the Collection

The wait for Yeezy x GAP is reminiscent of the wait for Kanye West’s 2016 album, The Life Of Pablo. Hopeful fans have been waiting in eager anticipation to get their hands on some kind of Kanye West x GAP apparel for the better part of the last year, and now they’ve finally been presented with a chance. Kanye West and The Gap’s first official apparel piece under the Yeezy x GAP line, the $200 USD Round Jacket was released on the artist’s 44th birthday, June 8, 2021.  

The Yeezy GAP Round Jacket was released in traditional Kanye West fashion: at random and in a way that lit the internet on fire. The product page for the jacket went live at midnight on Kanye West’s Birthday and will reportedly stay up until June 15th. Slightly disappointing to some fans is the pre-order nature of the Yeezy x GAP jacket, which won’t be shipping until October of this year. Commotion erupted during the early hours of the release as the jacket appeared to be sold out but it turned out that the release had simply crashed the GAP site, causing issues with the product page. For those interested in copping, the jacket is still available over on GAP’s site for a few more days. After that, the Yeezy GAP Round Jacket will be available to purchase on StockX here.

Advertising and promotion for the jacket began to take place post-release instead of ahead of time. Close friend of West and British fashion photographer, Nick Knight, took the reins on official promotion, launching an interactive online release party on his SHOWstudio platform. The chatroom featured a revolving image of the Yeezy GAP Round Jacket projected onto a wall where fans could digitally express their feelings about the release. Later in the night, an image of the jacket in a similar revolving fashion was projected onto several different buildings in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. 

This release, though it included just one piece, gives us a small glimpse into what may be coming in the not-so-distant future. For starters, GAP announced recently that the collaboration’s debut collection would be released this summer. It’s unlikely that this jacket is meant to be taken for that initial release so think of it like an amuse-bouche. What this release doesn’t make clear is whether or not the larger Yeezy x GAP collections will also be dropped using a pre-order model. It’s possible that this jacket, made available in honor of Kanye West’s birthday, was an exception, but we likely won’t know that for sure until the rest of the collection has been presented. 

The release of the Yeezy x GAP Round Jacket also (kind of) confirms one of West’s major talking points from last year: prices. As this deal was coming together, West made it clear that he wanted his apparel to be affordable to the masses. The $200 USD price point for the Yeezy x GAP Round Jacket is an undeniable step in that direction, at least in comparison to West’s previous apparel endeavors, but still a far cry from affordable for many. 

Made from a recycled nylon material with a particularly oversized Yeezy-esque silhouette to it, a price of $200 USD isn’t hard to justify, especially when compared to similar collaborations across the industry. After all, Drake’s recent jackets with Nike retailed for double that, and Fear of God Essentials’ Puffer Jackets retail at the exact same price. With that in mind, the Yeezy x GAP Round Jacket means it’s likely this collaboration will deliver on its promise to be affordable. We just may never see a $60 USD Kanye West-designed hoodie.

Yeezy x GAP’s first full collection is expected to release sometime in the next few months and the blue Round Jacket can be found on StockX here.