Ask a diehard Kanye West fan about West's first ever sneaker collaboration, and even he may forget to mention the time Kanye collaborated with Bape on a version of its famous Bapesta style. Unlike the collaborations that would follow, this sneaker didn't see Kanye West designing the style from the ground up. Rather, it exemplified the state of the sneaker industry at the time insofar as the design combined a popular silhouette with a newer, cooler, rarer colorway. (See: Supreme's Nike Dunks, Undefeated's Jordan IVs, etc.) In the case of Kanye West, that meant printing his "Dropout Bear" mascot on the heel, as well as using the brown, orange, and tan color scheme that appeared on the cover of The College Dropout. In the years that would follow, West went on to collaborate with Nike, Louis Vuitton, and most recently Adidas on some of the most hyped-up sneakers of the past decade. And even though the Kanye West Bapestas, like Bape itself, spent a few years on the bench of the perennial hypebeast games, ten years later both—meaning these hard-to-find sneakers—are poised for a comeback. Plus, they're a great way to stand out when everyone else is wearing Yeezy Boosts. Whether or not you can come up with the size 9.5 shoe size and, more importantly, the $1,500 to drop on these sneakers (they are, after all, a Kanye West design from 2007) is a different story.
