One day after Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga made its in-person debut at Gap’s Times Square flagship in New York City, the retailer has announced it will expand the physical offering to 45 of its stores across the U.S. on Saturday.
“Yeezy Gap and Balenciaga bring their shared vision of physical retail to select Gap store locations across the United States,” the brand confirmed in a short statement on Friday.
According to the Yeezy Gap website, locations getting the Kanye West, now known as Ye, and Demna tie-up include Gap stores in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Nashville, Dallas, Seattle and more. See the entire store list here.
The heat wave and spotty afternoon thunderstorms in NYC on Thursday didn’t stop fans of the collab to show up in droves, queuing around the block to get into the store to score pieces from the first drop. Once inside, customers were greeted with a minimalist display of bins filled with Yeezy Gap x Balenciaga gear. Some in attendance called it “dystopian” while others were happy the shop opened, stating this was “something Kanye always wanted.”
Indeed, at the time of the Times Square announcement on Wednesday, the brand stated that the store has been “reengineered and distilled to its most essential form” in Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga’s vision of utilitarian design.
This move, according to Yeezy, is to fulfill “the vision to deliver Yeezy Gap design on a larger scale.”
Thursday’s in-person launch also saw the debut of a virtual game experience designed by Demna, a seemingly natural progression from Balenciaga’s FW21 game. “A new digital game concept imagined by Yeezy Gap and Balenciaga brings to life the virtually rendered avatars first seen in the collection’s debut,” the brand said in a statement yesterday.
The first release of Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga can also be shopped online via Yeezygap.com, Balenciaga.com and at Balenciaga online partners Farfetch.com, Mytheresa.com and Luisaviaroma.com. Retail prices range from $60 to $340.
