When Ye speaks, his fans listen. Even if they had no idea what the hell he was saying.
This has been on display for the past few weeks, as the artist formerly known as Kanye West has released other clothing through the Yzy Supply webshop, including a number of austere pieces featuring Cyrillic and Greek lettering. was. The bleak website gave no clues as to the messages painted on the clothes. Kanieo scholars were perplexed.
One response on the Yeezy Subreddit was, “I want to know what they're actually talking about.”
Another user wondered: “What does this mean?”
Of course, before you buy a shirt, it's wise to understand what it represents. A Mets fan would never want to buy a jersey that says “Yankees” in Russian. But the wariness is even more understandable when it comes to Ye, whose spate of anti-Semitic and offensive comments led to his infamous self-immolation in 2022. Adidas has severed ties with the musician after years of a lucrative partnership with him. Creative Artists Agency dropped him as a client.
Some of Ye's most ardent fans continue to express feelings of bewilderment, if not anxiety, over the messages written on his clothes, especially those conveyed through the revived Yeezy label. . The Kanye and Yeezy subreddit is filled with threads of users discussing the real meaning behind graphics and non-English phrases.
In the wake of a previous clothing series that had “Black Dogs” printed in Russian, one Redditor asked if anyone knew what the phrase meant.
“I'd like to order one, and for obvious reasons, I'd like to know the origin of this phrase,” the Redditor wrote. The resulting answers were mixed and probably not serious. It was a Russian propaganda dog whistle, a reference to Led Zeppelin, and a harbinger of death.
Yeezy's latest clothing includes an even more disconcerting slogan. Hoodies, sweatshirts, shorts and jackets have Russian words written on them, which roughly translates to “Herald Tribune.” It is unclear whether this is a reference to the international newspapers of the past, or simply a gesture to the public. Experts say this simple phrase has no hidden meaning in Russian.
“I don't see any obvious references to Russia,” Tatyana Gershkovich, an associate professor of Russian studies at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote in an email. “After a little Googling, it appears that these two words are only found together on Kanye's clothes.”
Similarly, Eliot Borenstein, a professor of Russian language and Slavic studies at New York University, felt that the phrase would not resonate with Russian readers.
“This phrase will not make sense to a Russian speaker who has never heard of this newspaper,” he wrote in an email. “It's not hyphenated, so it looks like two random nouns put together.”
Emails sent to contact information on the Yeezy website went unanswered.
Another series of clothes had three letters that appeared to be Greek, but “they were just gibberish,'' said Marcus Folch, an associate professor of classics at Columbia University.
The letter, he noted in an email, appeared to form a graphic play about YZY. “It's cool,” Folch said. “But it has nothing to do with Greece,” he said, adding that the N is printed backwards.
In some ways, Yeezy's linguistic play is a fading echo of a modest trend from a few years ago when streetwear-tinged brands printed Cyrillic letters on their clothes. The actual text was never meaningful, as when American designer Heron Preston sold shirts with the word “style” written in Russian. Chekhov was not like that.
Still, there was something visually appealing about Cyrillic, a blocky alphabet that seemed puzzling to American shoppers. It has become a tool for designers looking to infuse their elemental hoodies and T-shirts with a dash of cosmopolitan appeal.
Popular use of the Russian alphabet faded away as Russia reasserted its military power, and by the start of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 it was almost obsolete.
If Yeezy is bringing back this trend, the impulse is undoubtedly coming from the label's head of design, Russian designer Gosha Rubchinsky. When Ye returned to X in December 2023 and appointed Rubchinsky, the announcement raised eyebrows in the fashion industry.
For several years now, Mr. Rubchinsky's collections have been enthusiastically received by critics and retailers for their combination of old-school sportswear, military prowess and strikingly mature tailoring. He has collaborated with Adidas, Burberry, Levi's and Dr. Martens and was hailed as a generational talent. Some of Mr. Rubchinsky's clothes are decorated with Cyrillic phrases and logos, a design detail clearly carried over by Yeezy.
And in 2018, a 16-year-old model sued Rubchinskiy, accusing him of requesting lewd images. He denied the allegations and continued designing, but the industry was indifferent to him. Mr. Ye found in Mr. Rubchinsky a kindred spirit who had been banished from the runway fashion system.
The Yeezy line continues to share its name with the one Ye used to run with Adidas (though it's now often stylized to eliminate the “e”), but today 's Yeezy brand is a radical retail experiment that departs from any of Ye's past clothing projects.
There is currently no Yeezy fashion show or retail partnership with Gap. Once known for his sensual color experiments (although people may downplay it now, Ye's earth-toned revolution changed fashion for years), Ye is known for his frugal tastes. retreated. His clothes come in three colors: white, gray, and black.
All items are on sale for $20, including a windbreaker shaped like a painter's smock, shorts with an elastic waist, and the slipper shoes introduced this week. Once a jockey for attention on the runway, his designs now have more in common with army surplus stock and prison uniforms than with the fantastical pieces shown at Paris Fashion Week. are increasing.
Still, Mr. Ye's venture seems to be going well, at least according to him. On Tuesday morning, Ye posted on Instagram that the store had generated more than $2.3 million in sales on Monday.
