Kanye West makes bank charging $55 for a $4 shirt

Kanye West makes a fortune on his $55 Yeezy shirts because they’re made on $4 Gildan shirts.

Kanye West is nothing if not a marketing genius. Yeezy announced the opening of 21 pop-up shops all over the world. The shops were open from Friday to Sunday and featured exclusive Life of Pablo merchandise along with Pablo merch displaying the name of the city where it was purchased. Read: this is highly exclusive, must-have merchandise.

If Kanye announces a pop-up shop, they will come. And it’s true—Life of Pablo fans flocked to his pop-up shops to buy exclusive merchandise and the $55 shirts flew off the shelves, as expected. The fans came out, young and old, men and women, to buy Kanye West’s exclusive merchandise. They waited in lines overnight to get into the stores, many of which were in boarded up buildings with plywood doors. Despite disappointment over pricing, fans still paid top dollar for a little bit of Pablo.

When all was said and done, Yeezy announced a million dollar profit from the effort. That huge number starts to fall apart after the $55 shirts were found to be nothing more than shirts printed on Gildan shirts that sell for an average of $1.50-$4. Yes, that means that Yeezy made boatloads of money on those shirts while fans were left with a low quality item.

Fan reaction came swiftly, with many fans calling out their idol for his overpriced shirts.

It would be one thing if the shirts were $55 because they were printed on high-quality shirts manufactured in the United States, but they’re not. Gildan manufactures in Nicaragua and Honduras, so Yeezy is making loads of money while hardworking Nicaraguans and Hondurans make pennies on the dollar.

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But hey, Kanye has to make money to pay off his massive debt. And being a genius is hard work. Don’t bother Kanye with things like fair labor and quality control and not ripping off his loyal fans. He’s a genius, and clearly, his genius requires loads of money.