OPINION | This article contains the author's opinion.
Rapper Kanye West revealed that he ended his contract with the Gap clothing store in order to manufacture his clothing line in the U.S.
Appearing on CNBC, West said, “It was always a dream of mine to be at the Gap and to bring the best product possible to the masses, and I always talked to them about doing products for $20 like the best product in the world, designed at the same level as the top fashion houses in the world, at $20 for the people.”
“Obviously there’s always struggles and back-and-forth when you’re trying to build something new and integrate teams,” he added.
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West claimed the Gap would ignore him and not collaborate enough on the collection he gave them.
He also said the deal ended because he wanted to bring the industry back to America.
“There’s a lot of stuff where they have a lot of commitments to China. We wanted to do localized manufacturing which is completely possible with some of the factories that I’m buying here in California,” he continued.
“We can actually bring industry back to America,” West said.
“I feel like in a lot of ways Europe has been the head of prestige with the luxury brands and luxury vehicles, and China has been ahead of manufacturing, but America, we invented rock’n’roll, we are the youngest startup ever, America itself,” he added.