This past Saturday, July 7th, will be remembered as a milestone in the Yeezy brand legacy. On this day, the Yeezy 500 released in a third colorway, dubbed "Utility Black". Although the 500s never garnered the same attention as the 350, 500, or 750 line of sneakers, the quick sellout times that have become a hallmark of the Yeezy brand were still expected. After all, even the Yeezy 500 "Waverunners" soared to resale prices well over $1,000 just months after they were available for pre-order for several hours. Surely any new silhouette would garner mass appeal, right?
This line of logic led to a faster sellout time for the preorders of the first Yeezy 500, known as the "Blush" colorway, in February of this year. Accordingly, preorder confirmations were being sold for $500+, comfortably above the $200 retail price tag. The silhouette quickly lost momentum however, as the resale price hovered around $300 when the shoes officially released on April 14.
Regardless, there was no question that the Yeezy 500 Blush were an "instant sellout" shoe. The following colorway, the Yeezy 500 "Supermoon Yellow", was also received with slim margins in the resale market, but still managed to sell out the same day it released, June 9.
Which brings us to the latest Yeezy 500 to release, the all-black "Utility Black" colorway. The shoe features the same buttery suede as previous releases, but in a starkly darker palette. Perhaps affected by the release of a new Yeezy 350 the previous week, the Utility Black 500s were available on Adidas' website for all of Saturday and Sunday, and were still available at the time of this post in several sizes. Many images surfaced on social media of pairs sitting on shelves in stores and online, showing the seemingly widespread indifference towards the latest Yeezys.
Will this failure of a release (by Yeezy standards) affect the overall demand for the brand? Will this colorway regain popularity in the secondary market like its predecessors? There are more questions than answers at this point, but what is clear is that this lack of demand for Yeezys has never been seen before, barring the Yeezy Powerphase.
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