Kanye West’s Yeezy Site Now Has ‘Stores Coming Soon’ Message
Days after Kanye West’s Yeezy site started selling only one product — a white T-shirt imprinted with a black swastika — the e-tailer’s site had been deactivated Thursday. But hours later its home page teased Yeezy stores “coming soon.”
The 24-time Grammy winner has been criticized over the past week, after making antisemitic remarks on social media. That controversy intensified after West ran a commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX that aired in select markets including Los Angeles and directed viewers to the Yeezy site. Instead of the assortment of products that had been previously featured on the site, there was only a T-shirt with the swastika imprinted on it. The item was described as “HH-01” with no further information.
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A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League said Thursday, “Millions of Super Bowl viewers were shown an ad of Ye promoting his clothing website. Before the website was taken down, the only item for sale was a plain white T-shirt with a black swastika. And if that isn’t enough, the T-shirt was labeled as ‘HH-01’ which is code for Heil Hitler.”
The ADL statement continued, “We cannot become numb, desensitized to Nazi symbols and rhetoric. We appreciate that Shopify and Apple Pay took action, and that Fox News has condemned antisemitism and apologized for airing this ad. We urge Nexstar to do the same. Ye’s words have offended several communities and it’s time to stop excusing this kind of behavior.”
Shopify stopped processing orders of Yeezy merchandise on Tuesday and the talent agency 33 & West stopped representing West, who is legally known now as “Ye.”
A media request to Yeezy was not acknowledged Thursday afternoon, nor was one to his attorney Manoj Shah of the Brand Counsel. Representatives at Shopify and 33 & West also did not respond immediately to requests for comment Thursday.
On Thursday afternoon the Yeezy e-commerce site and the @Yeezysupplyofficial account on Instagram posted a handwritten note, which read “YEEZY STORES COMING SOON❤️”
Susan Scafidi, founder of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, said that while unlike in Germany, “it is legal in the U.S. to sell items that use the swastika to advocate Nazism, the T-shirts may have violated Shopify’s ‘Acceptable Use Policy,’ which prohibits actions that ‘breach the social contract of commerce,’ including advocating violence against specific groups.”
She said, “Shopify reserves the right to terminate any account that violates its AUP, and arguably Ye’s T-shirts coupled with his public statements did just that.”
Scafidi said the “Coming Soon” message on the Yeezy site could “simply be due to the lack of having back-end merchant services to keep it running. It could also be that Ye is more interested in provocation than commerce at the moment. One thing is for sure: his followers will keep hitting ‘refresh’ until the next drama emerges.”
In 2021, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation to ban the selling or displaying of hate symbols on public property and taxpayer-funded equipment.
Considering that Shopify isn’t “just an anonymous back-end merchant service provider, but a company with a brand name in its own right,” the company has a strong interest in protecting its reputation, according to Scafidi. She speculated that “the outcry over Ye’s T-shirts likely caused internal concern and led Shopify to use contractual means to protect its reputation.”
Scafidi added, “Like other companies before it, Shopify chose to distance from Ye before being blamed for his statements,” an apparent reference to Adidas and other brands that have parted ways with the musician.
Although Ye still has “a significant following, apparently including fans ready to buy whatever he puts on a T-shirt,” Scafidi said it may be increasingly difficult for him to find fashion business partners, who are “willing to risk working with him, even if they’re providing something as general as e-commerce services.”
Another offshoot of the situation was falsely created by an AI-generated video featuring the likenesses of Scarlett Johansson, Steven Spielberg, Jerry Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Adam Driver and other Jewish celebrities wearing T-shirts imprinted with a middle finger with a Star of David inside of it and “Kanye” imprinted below. The footage was reportedly created by Ori Bejerano and Guy Bar. In response to that, Johansson is urging U.S. lawmakers to place limits on AI, describing it as “a bipartisan issue.”
Ye also caused a stir on Feb. 7 by announcing plans to collaborate with Sean Combs’ Sean John clothing label, and sharing sales of Yeezy products 50-50. Combs is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, as he awaits his trial for sex trafficking and racketeering charges. Combs has denied any wrongdoing.
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