Ye wore an Air Yeezy sample to the 2008 Grammys. It sold for $1.8 million.

Ye walked out at the 50th Grammy Awards on 10 Feb 2008 for Hey Mama and Stronger in a pair of black high-tops that serious collectors couldn’t place. There was a Swoosh on the heel and nothing else to go on. For more than a year there’d been talk of a Ye sneaker at Nike, and this was the first proof, Sotheby’s later wrote.

It was the Air Yeezy, 14 months before it went on sale. Thirteen years later, that exact pair became the most expensive sneaker ever sold in public.

Built in Beaverton, on loan for one night

It was a sample. Ye designed it with Nike creative director Mark Smith, and it was built in Nike’s Innovation Kitchen in Beaverton, Oregon, in 2007. Rolling Stone adds Tiffany Beers to the design team. Smith kept it so quiet that he’d only hand the pair over if it came straight back after the performance.

Size 12, soft black leather, perforated all over, with a tonal Swoosh on the heel overlay and a strap across the forefoot. The pink Y lace locks it wears now weren’t on it that night. Rolling Stone describes a glow-in-the-dark outsole, to match his Glow in the Dark tour. He went home with four Grammys, Best Rap Album among them.

From a charity sale to Sotheby’s

The pair was first sold as Grammy Worn, for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, a charity Nike often supports. By 2021 it’d ended up with collector Ryan Chang of @applied.arts.nyc, and that April Sotheby’s put it on show in Hong Kong and offered it by private sale.

Before it went anywhere, Sotheby’s and Suede One didn’t take it on trust. They matched its creases, scuffs and perforation rows against photos of Ye on stage. They even found a stitching flaw on the strap that Nike’s quality control hadn’t caught.

On 26 Apr 2021 the sneaker investment platform RARES bought it for $1.8 million, almost three times the old public record, Rolling Stone and Hypebeast reported.

The retail Air Yeezy came out on 4 Apr 2009 in Zen Grey, then in black and pink and in a beige Net. They’re close. They’re not the pair Smith wanted back before the night was over.