Prior to Kanye West’s dramatic 2022 public meltdown — during which he made multiple bizarre and antisemitic comments, praised Hitler and appeared on the show of the notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — his  Yeezy collaboration with Adidas was a veritable money printer for the German footwear corporation. In the nine years following its 2013 inception, Yeezy made Adidas billions and lifted the company to previously unseen heights of cultural relevance, with the 350 v2, 700 “Wave Runner,” and Yeezy Slides all being modern footwear best sellers. Morgan Stanley analyst Edouard Aubin estimated that the Yeezy line was responsible for $1.8 billion in annual sales, roughly 8 percent of the company’s total revenue, and more than 40 percent of its profits. The unsold inventory of 2022 alone was worth $1.3 billion. 

As Rolling Stone and the Wall Street Journal reported, Adidas had quietly tolerated, and perhaps enabled, Mr. West’s, or Ye’s, outlandish and abusive behavior – which included forcing executives to watch porn – for years, even as it paid him more and more money. Yet the unavoidably bad optics of Ye’s public, “I also love Nazis” meltdown in 2022 forced Adidas to part ways with him, leaving the shoemaker with a massive hole to fill, both financially and in cultural relevance. Despite his long history of mental instability, Ye had been a tastemaker beyond compare, with an ability to find and build the next trend like no other. Adidas had also partnered with  other talented, fashionable figures like Pharrell, Pusha T, and Beyonce, but the company has never been able to find anything close to the same fit as Ye. The Pharrell x Chanel NMDs sell for $4,500 on the second-hand market, but new models are almost instantly headed to the discount rack. The now-ended Beyonce line, Ivy Park, was such a commercial failure that it lost $20 million in 2022.

Now, Adidas has placed its latest hopes in the form of the founder and lead designer for the trendy American luxury label, Fear of God, Jerry Lorenzo, whose Essentials sub brand has been a massive hit among fashion-conscious men in their teens and 20s. It’s surprising that my wardrobe isn’t full of their clothes. 

Mr. Lorenzo loves footwear but has had a tricky history in sneaker collaborations, oddly similar to — if not as successful as — that of his friend, Mr. West. Both Mr. Lorenzo and Mr. West made ambitious collaborative projects with Nike, only to leave shortly afterward to join Adidas. Ye’s Adidas project became the multi-billion dollar goliath, Adidas-Yeezy. With their new collaborative Fear of God Athletics line, Adidas hopes they’ve found its replacement. 

They haven’t. 

Instead, from this first outing, it’s more likely that Fear of God Athletics will be a small luxury sublabel within Adidas, like Y3, and if it becomes a huge financial success, that will be despite Mr. Lorenzo’s efforts, not because of it. 

Though Fear of God’s mainline is a high-end luxury brand — selling beautiful coats for thousands of dollars — the Essentials line of ‘elevated basics’ adds a luxurious feeling to sportswear at premium but accessible pricing. Those awaiting the Fear of God Adidas line were expecting this price range and that Mr. Lorenzo would bring a luxurious air to Adidas-priced garments.  

Yet it turns out that the Athletics line is a lot closer to the mainline Fear of God. Their mock-neck black T-shirt costs $180. The “suede fleece” sweatpants are $280. A black fleece hoodie? A mere $350. Car coat? Try $600. Or you might be interested in a $400 goalie jersey? When I first saw his Adidas-branded light suede duffle bag during Fear of God’s April 2023 Hollywood Bowl runway show, I’d been smitten with it, and for a few hundred dollars, would have bought one. Yet I’m not buying it for $1,500. 

The shoes are more reasonably priced — between $170 and $250, excluding the rip-off $100 Adilette slides — but the selection is limited, basic, and unlikely to spawn the reverence that Mr. Lorenzo’s striking Nike Fear of God 1 rightfully has. 

The reason for this is quite simple: whereas Ye’s creative tendency was for erratic hyper-productivity, leading to a massive supply of product, which Adidas could price according to scale, Mr. Lorenzo is a perfectionist, and the pricing has had to be adjusted to fit the production, material, and R&D costs associated with this. The collaboration was announced in December 2020, three years ago, amid the Covid peak of streetwear and sneaker resale hype. Had Adidas released a year later, not only would they have sold far more product, but they would have been able to price the product more affordably. Yet three years of R&D costs and opportunity cost is not cheap, and customers pay the price. 

We’ve seen this before, in fact, when Ye tried being a perfectionist with his Gap line. The first two products released, the Round Jacket and Perfect Hoodie, were priced affordably. Yet when he obsessed over details on the second collection, spending several months on them, causing delay on delay, Gap had to make up for that in pricing. And that’s why their denim jacket was $400, their t-shirts were $160, and the hoodie was $200. 

It’s worth noting that not all the blame can be put on Mr. Lorenzo. When their collaboration was announced in 2020, Mr. Lorenzo was supposed to be running the entirety of Adidas Basketball, requiring him to design products for a massive range of purposes, price levels, territories, and so forth — a gargantuan task that an aesthetic perfectionist of his manner would never be able to handle. Adidas eventually realized this, limiting his domain to the “Fear of God Athletics” line. Had this been the focus from the outset, it could have had something similar to Essentials, with a wider range of products and appeal, and faster releases, and really pulled in a big, young audience. 

Adidas could have had the next Yeezy on their hands. 

Instead, they have a range of extremely high-quality, luxurious athletics gear that hasn’t sold its relatively limited debut release. Maybe future drops by “Athletics” will turn this around — more distinct products and lower prices would help. Yet to become the next Yeezy, it would need a God-given miracle.