Gap wouldn’t go to $20. Ye’s Vultures box tee did.

At 19:44 Pacific on 10 Feb 2024, yeezy.com put up a product called BOX T WHITE. Its whole description was YZY VULTURES BOX T, and it retailed at $20. Vultures 1 had landed that weekend, on the 20th anniversary of The College Dropout, as Complex pointed out. The next day Ye ran a Super Bowl ad that he’d shot on his phone, pointing people to the site.

It was the price he’d been chasing since Gap. In a 2022 podcast interview he said Gap had been protecting “the classism of the idea of Balenciaga and the idea of Gap”, Complex reported.

“Gap didn’t take it to $20 the way I wanted to.” Ye, on the Alo Mind Full podcast, via Complex

Two years later, everything on his own store cost $20, “as promised”, he said.

Four shirts in one minute

The store had created BOX T WHITE the day before. It went live alongside BOX T BLACK, ONE BOX T and LONG T, and the black one’s images were filed as VULTURES-BOX-TEE-BLACK. Sizes ran 1 (XS-S), 2 (M-L) and 3 (L-XL), and that’s the same three-number system the YZY Pods used.

By 12 Feb Complex was listing the rest of the $20 rack. It wasn’t only tees: the Pods were there too, with the WET tank and romper, long sleeves carrying the album art and a pair of Vultures pants.

A box, literally

It’s short, wide and square, with raw edges at the hem and sleeves, so it looks cut rather than sewn. The front carries a small shield with a two-headed eagle. On the back that crest is blown up across the shoulders under VULTURES. YZY’s own model shot shows it best: four looks on white, no styling, and a tee whose back does all the talking.

Two years earlier, $20 had been Ye’s complaint about Gap. Now it was the only price on his store.