We Went Inside Ye's YEEZY GAP Store as It Took Times Square
Typically, when a famous person opens a retail store, it draws a crowd. When Ye redesigns GAP's Times Square flagship for the first IRL YEEZY GAP drop, it shuts down a city block.
That's barely an exaggeration: Highsnobiety was on the scene when Ye's first-ever YEEZY GAP store opened on July 21 and glimpsed a massive line stretching across the entirety of New York's prime tourist trap. Insert tired pun about trap music here.
Staff forbade detailed videos of the "reengineered and distilled" YEEZY GAP store, as a press release described it, at least until the general public was able to get inside themselves.
However, even the quick clips Highsnobiety lensed inside reveal a redesign far more progressive than any GAP store that's ever come before.
It's plain to see that Ye is ushering GAP into the future and he's got the video game to prove it.
Yes, there is indeed a YEEZY GAP Balenciaga game, a natural successor to Balenciaga's FW21 game, at least in terms of next-gen tech.
In terms of gameplay, it's a pretty straightforward infinite jump-style experience, wherein a YEEZY GAP Engineered by Balenciaga-clad figure bounds from dove to dove and ramps up in speed until the player misses a bird, sending their character tumbling to the ground to gain what appear to be experience points.
Certainly, GAP could use a shot in the arm from its Ye partnership.
The company reported some disappointing financials for Q1 2022 and CEO Sonia Syngal, the woman who worked with Ye to bring YEEZY GAP to life, departed in early mid-July.
But you wouldn't know that there's any cracks in the operation from being inside YEEZY GAP's Times Square store or even outside, where kids queued up for over a city block despite painfully humid weather and sudden downpours.
In and out, countless young shoppers strolled around wearing YEEZY GAP shirts, hoodies, and other bits from drop two, plus the requisite YEEZY sneakers.
Inside Ye's GAP store, sharp lighting illuminates sleek grey confines. Earth-toned and well-faded YEEZY GAP garments are piled haphazardly into deep bags made of militaristic textiles, as if discarded from some great battle. You have to dig through the stacks to find your desired size and style.
The harsh industrial aesthetic makes being in the YEEZY GAP store feel like scouring a Goodwill warehouse within the Blade Runner universe.
There's more in the works, too, but it's hush-hush for now.
The main thing to know is that Times Square is only the first store in the world to sell YEEZY GAP Engineered by Balenciaga in-person.
One caveat: Ye's NYC store will only ever carry a slice of the main collection, though it's kinda hard to tell given the random piles of clothes.
Other GAP stores will carry the YEEZY GAP Engineered by Balenciaga collection in due time.
Stay plugged in to the official YEEZY Instagram page if you're a diehard but, really, you already know taht YEEZY GAP updates will be reported on by every Ye-adjacent outlet online, including this one right here.
So, when's the next YEEZY GAP drop? July 23 by the looks of it, when a fleet of vans will shock-drop YEEZY GAP Engineered by Balenciaga across America.
But you can still buy YEEZY GAP online and, in fact, you'll probably always be able to.
The idea behind YEEZY GAP isn't to create a rarefied selection of exclusives unattainable to all but the most ardent of Ye supporters. It may seem crazy to think now, with the world losing its mind over every move YEEZY GAP makes, but the idea is that it becomes normalized.
One day, we'll all be able to walk into our local YEEZY GAP store and pick up an anorak, T-shirt, jeans, socks, or sneakers as our whims demand it. Perhaps you'll even drive there in a DONDA car from your YEEZY Home.
Ye is already the future of GAP and, if he has his way, he'll be a major part of our future as well.
