Wait, Did Kanye West And Giuseppe Zanotti Collaborate On These Men's Sneakers?
Did Kanye West and Giuseppe Zanotti collab on these sneakers?
Photo: Getty Images/Shoebaloo
Welp, I guess it's about time we own up. We need to apologize, to you and to ourselves, for being selfish over here at MTV Style. Sure, we tune in to dude fashion news every now and then, but that happens almost exclusively when ogling is involved. If this latest Kanye West x Giuseppe Zanotti question is any indication of the kinds of things we miss by keeping tunnel vision locked on women's fashion, though, it's high time we start paying closer attention to the wonderful world of menswear. You see, somehow in all our excitement about this duo's collaborative lady shoes, we completely overlooked that these two might have/probably/MAYBE teamed up for some men's sneakers!
We include all the waffling modifiers because there just isn't much information readily available to confirm OR deny our suspicions about this alleged collab. It all started when we stumbled across this Instagram posted by Ibn Jasper, Kanye's long-time personal barber and trusted style consultant. The upload is a still from 50 Cent's new music video for "We Up" wherein the camera shoots a close-up of 50's feet sporting a pair of all-white sneakers with two gold plates across the upper—sneakers which Ibn identifies as "the YEEZi x Giuseppe's." *cue the knee-jerk double-take* Ummm, excuse me, WHAT?
A screenshot of Ibn Jasper's Instagram
Photo: Courtesy of @ibnjasper's Instagram
Evidently, we weren't the only ones taken aback, as Ibn's photo started to rack up surprised comments like, "He designed a men's shoe as well? Where are pics or can be purchased bro," and "i didnt even know yeezy designed these shoes. Got 2 of them, they're crazy." Jasper shed a little knowledge, responding, "YEEZi designed the Hi and Lo Giuseppe sneakers w/the zippers. That's why Giuseppe manufacturers YEEZi's heels. #FriendshipInBusiness." Being that the dude is so close to Ye and knowing that Mr. West has a history with sneaker design (the Yeezys 1 and 2 for Nike and that Louis Vuitton collab from back in the day), we are predisposed to believe it. The trouble, though, came when we dug a little deeper, when we tried to track down ANY kind of announcement or tweet or Facebook timeline post from Zanotti.
Considering all the press for the other GZ x KW shoes—I mean, HELLO, the Cruel Summer heels even have their own Giuseppe Zanotti for Kanye West TAB, makes the lack of formal acknowledgement especially perplexing. These particular sneakers aren't currently available on the Giuseppe Zanotti e-commerce site, but we were able to track them down to Netherlands-based shoe retailer Shoebaloo along with a handful of other GZ sneakers bearing "Kanye" in their descriptions. Hmmmm. At press time, we're still not sure what's going on here (frankly, we're more confused now than we were when we started down this rabbit hole), but we DO know that we'll be hot on the trail of this story for further developments. Also, that we would like these kicks in lady sizes. Good day!
