Yeezy Gap : Why selling clothes in trash bags is not a good idea

7 min readOct 18, 2022

Source : Kanye West defends Yeezy Gap trash bags: ‘I’m an innovator’ (nypost.com)

The scene is grotesque, dozens of people rummage through garbage bags to buy a hoodie. Angry customers ask the salesmen to help them, but they do nothing.

The scene I just described is the one that took place during the store launch of the Yeezy Gap collection in august. This collection, controversial because it was openly inspired by homeless people, was the starting point that set the partnership between Kanye West and Gap on fire. So much that in September, Ye (Kanye west) openly announced that the partnership between him and the American brand is over, only a few months after the beginning of their collaboration.

The end of this collaboration extinguishes the hopes that Gap had to return on the market of the fashion and puts Ye in a difficult position, because remaining very dependent on the incomes of his sneakers Yeezy.

The crisis: financial for Gap, of image for Ye

Gap: An aging brand with declining sales

We can date the beginning of the downfall for Gap in 2002, when the CEO, Mickey Drexler had to resign because of a sharp decline in sales of the brand. This was followed by several failed attempts at diversification, such as Piperlime, an e-commerce sales site that started in 2006 and closed in 2015, or Forth and Towne, a brand that targeted women over 35, which had to close only 1 year after its opening in 2007. In 2019, the company even recorded a loss of more than 1 billion dollars, resulting from unsuccessful strategies carried out since the early 2000s.

So when in 2020 Ye signed a partnership with Gap It was great hopes that arise. Indeed, Gap planned to generate 1 billion dollars of additional sales per year, after 5 years of collaboration with Yeezy. But this will not happen

Still, in the Forbes article Gap Can’t Afford To Let Kanye West And Yeezy Go, the editor insists that this partnership was essential for the brand. Indeed, as Gap is already in decline, Ye couldn’t “ do a worse job than the board has already done” Neil Saunders, former analyst at GlobalRetail.

On the other hand Kanye took a blow for his image, but he isn’t financially impact by the event.

Ye: A crisis of image

Kanye West first became a world-renowned artist, thanks to his two albums, College Drop Out and Graduation. In 2015 he turned to the fashion industry, starting a long-term partnership between his brand Yeezy and the German company Adidas. This collaboration was so successful that Kanye West became the richest black American man in history in 2021. Nevertheless, it is not money that motivates Kanye West, but a vision. This vision, include create clothing that is accessible to everyone. In fact, In 2015 he said in an interview with style.com that he wanted to be “the Steve jobs of Gap”.

In 2020, he almost reached his goal, with the beginning of the partnership with Gap. Nevertheless, the romance quickly turned into a nightmare, from the second collection. Garbage bags filled with Yeezy Gap clothes were place in the middle of the store. Customers had to search for their size which brought many negative reactions on twitter and on the media.

This event as I will explain through the concept of servuction, reflects an internal conflict in the company where Gap and Ye do not manage to agree on the strategy to implement.

What is the servuction ?

To understand how the garbage crisis reflects an internal crisis between Kanye and Gap, we first need to define the concept of servuction

“A service is the result of a production process, which has been called servuction” and which results from four major interactions represented in the following diagram. Servuction is the organization of the material and human resources required to provide a service. It distinguishes between interactions between customers, between customers and the front office (contact staff, material environment), between contact staff and the material environment, and between the front office and the back office (internal support organization).” Mercator 13th Edition

Servuction : The result of an interaction between the staff and the client

To exist, a service must include an interaction between the staff and the client. These interactions, which can be weak or strong, involve different issues depending on the case.

The case of weak interactions

We consider a service in which there is few humans interactions, like digital services or self-services (e.g.: supermarket with an automatic checkout)

This type of service allows customers to have more freedom in their choices and is generally less expensive, as it requires fewer staff in contact.

Aside from the advantages, having few interactions has some disadvantages. The first one is that the service could be ill-suited for customers who are unable to use the automatic interfaces. In addition, the difficulties that these automatic interfaces can create, requires that the company has competent staff to respond to these problems. Moreover, when services include few interactions, it becomes even more important to take care of the interaction between the staff and the client.

The case of strong interactions

Services where there is a lot of interaction are all the “classic” services that are not automated or do not work according to the principle of self-service. The author of Mercator insists on the porosity between what happens internally, at the level of the organization, and what happens externally, namely what the customer sees. Indeed, the climate of the company influences the way in which the personnel will behave with the customer. It is therefore important to pay attention to the atmosphere within the company and to the health of the staff to make sure that they work in the best possible conditions and thus offer the best service.

Servuction : The result of an interaction between the client, the staff and the material environement

Interactions between staff and customers are important but it is essential to take into account the material environment of the service. Indeed, the production of service generally takes place in a point of sale where many material elements contribute to the good progress of the service. These elements are called physical supports. One industry where physical supports are important is the hotel industry. If the hotel environment does not look good, the service will be badly evaluated by the customer.

Servuction : The result of choices made by the internal organisation

As we briefly discussed above, the way the company is organized and its strategy directly impacts the quality of the service provided. These elements will influence the way in which the staff is trained and supervised, but also the procedures that they must follow and the equipment at their disposal.

The choice of layout of the point of sale also influence the perceived quality of the service.

We call this hidden part of the organization back office as opposed to the front office which is the place where the staff interacts with the customer.

Servuction : The result of interactions between the customers

Finally, the interactions between customers must be taken into account in the servuction because their attitudes influence each other. To a certain extent, the company can influence the interactions between customers (e.g. waiting line management).

Now that we know what servuction is and what its components are, we can take a look at the servuction at Gap stores.

Yeezy Gap : A failed servuction

The strategic choice of Yeezy was to not interact with the customer in their servuction. Indeed, salesman were forbiden to help customers find their size. The problem is that the clothes were arranged in bags, and all the sizes were mixed, so it has exasperated the customers that were trying to find their size in the bag.

As Gap Quickly realized the problems that such a merchandising approach posed, Gap decided to put the clothes on hangers, in a classic way. This change created a first clash between Gap and Ye, because the latter noting the change of product layout, complained to the company and organized an interview with Fox to justify its strategic choices. But this interview did not really help Ye who, in the same period, shared on his istagram account that his greatest inspiration are the homeless.

Why it’s not a good idea to sell clothes in garbage bags

In the end, the problem is not about selling or not selling clothes in garbage bags. In fact, this controversial idea was a success since the collection was sold out. The real problem is that the disagreement between Gap and Ye broke out to the public and stopped the strategy from the beginning.