With her new adidas x Ivy Park activewear collection, which gets its start online and in Adidas stores at midnight, Adidas is betting on pop icon Beyoncé. Her Ivy Park collection first launched in 2016 with Topshop, but the pop singer subsequently acquired full control of the brand, CNBC reported.
Beyoncé said in a statement, according to the outlet, “It’s a dream come true to re-launch Ivy Park as the sole owner.”
Queen Bey, for her part, is one of the best-known celebrities around the globe, with over 133 million Instagram followers. She is the sixth most followed person worldwide, per research by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch. (As of today, Beyoncé’s Instagram page has 138 million followers.)
The note said, “In line with Adidas’ approach on other franchises, we would expect there to be a low-volume, high-priced launch … to create brand heat and in the following years, the brand will likely become more democratized.”
Sneaker brands have recently been using all types of celebrities to endorse their merchandise. Kanye West’s Yeezy brand, for instance, is said to be a large hit for Adidas when it comes to sales and culture. According to Forbes, as cited by the CNBC report, Yeezy merchandise earned an estimated $1.5 billion last year.
Last April, news surfaced that consumers would be able to buy Adidas-branded Beyoncé shoes as well as clothes. Bloomberg reported at the time that the star had teamed with the sportswear company as Adidas seeks to make its casual fashion line more attractive to a younger generation. Shares in Adidas jumped 1.3 percent following the announcement.
The Beyoncé deal was to yield all-new products in the lifestyle and performance categories, with a focus on “empowering and enabling the next generation of athletes, creators and leaders,” per Adidas.