UPDATE: Kanye West Apologizes for Stolen Tony Spackman Designs
The person responsible for presenting them to Kanye has been fired from Yeezy.
UPDATE: Kanye West has taken to Twitter to explain the story behind the stolen designs. According to ‘Ye, a newly hired employee presented the inspiration to him and claimed it as their own work. That person has since been fired from Yeezy and West himself apologized to Tony Spackman saying he “would like to acknowledge the true creator of this amazing work, Tony Spackman.”
Today I learned that a newly hired designer on the Yeezy team presented work that was not of their own. This person has immediately been let go from the Yeezy brand.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 4, 2018
In a moment of inspiration, energy and excitement I had posted this sketch and would like to acknowledge the true creator of this amazing work, Tony Spackman.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 4, 2018
Despite being one of the less-controversial Kanye West tweets in recent weeks, the artist has been criticised for a sketch he recently shared. Describing it as “where a YEEZY study for base layer starts” Kanye posted a series of scientific sketches, adding that he is “so excited about our new design team.”
These images appear to have been stolen from Tony Spackman, an ex-Nike designer currently working at Givenchy. Pointing out what had happened, Spackman stated: “When Kanye rips your 10 year old Nike sketch and claims it” as well as adding that ‘Ye had photoshopped out the date and ripped the image straight from his web site.
Since his return to Twitter, Kanye has addressed the topic of originality stating that “I find myself getting stuck in the idea of originality and letting my ego push me to say things like “this person stole this from me” and the funny thing is it’ll be a reference I took from somewhere.” As it stands, Kanye is yet to respond to Spackman’s criticism.
In other Kanye news, the adidas CEO recently announced that the company hadn’t considered dropping him.
