Photo Credit: Cosmopolitan UK / CC by 3.0
The rapper formerly known as Kanye West is officially facing a more than $416,000 lawsuit for allegedly failing to return “rare high-end fashion garments” that he rented from a business in New York City.
Filed specifically against “Ye (formerly known as Kanye West)” as well as the artist and entrepreneur’s Yeezy Apparel company, the firmly worded complaint just recently made its way to a California federal court. The plaintiff, one David Casavant, LLC, was “founded by leading stylist David Casavant” and owns the David Casavant Archive.
Said Archive, in turn, rents (but does not sell) a decidedly expensive collection of apparel “pieces to an exclusive clientele of leaders in contemporary culture, including Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Tom Brady, Kendrick Lamar, and Paul McCartney,” according to the action.
Since 2015, “Ye has continuously rented clothing from” the Archive, including “both for personal wear and for professional engagements,” per the plaintiff – going as far as “periodically” flying David Casavant employees to California “for consultation services and to choose items.”
The associated rentals were completed via Yeezy Apparel, the plaintiff maintains, and David Casavant, LLC purportedly “memorialized every one of these rental agreements, entered into orally, with invoices identifying the items rented, the duration of the rental, the rental rate for each item, and the replacement cost for each item.”
Additionally, Yeezy was allegedly billed “at the same weekly rental rate listed on the original invoice” when Ye kept items beyond their initially negotiated rental period. And when products were lost altogether, Yeezy allegedly coughed up “the replacement fee as reflected in the invoices for those items in addition to the rental fees for the full duration of the rental period.”
Predictably, given the years-running rentals and the present action, Ye/Yeezy paid “consistently” for a time but ultimately ceased doing so, according to the lawsuit.
To be sure, Ye is said to have rented 49 items in February of 2020 and paid their rental fees into that summer – while returning just 36 of the exorbitantly priced jackets, pants, and shirts. The plaintiff claims to have stopped receiving rental payments for the 13 allegedly outstanding items in late October of 2020, with Ye and Yeezy having “not responded meaningfully” to related communications after paying somewhere around a whopping $86,000 for the rentals during the eight-month stretch.
Three of the 13 items that Kanye West allegedly failed to return to a high-end fashion-rental company, valued by their owner at $24,000, $55,000, and $50,000, respectively. Photo Credit: Digital Music News
As a result, the filing party is seeking $221,810 in rental fees – or the 13 items’ total weekly rental cost, $2,705, multiplied by the number of weeks for which Yeezy allegedly owes, 82 – as well as $195,100 in replacement charges for the “rare, esteemed pieces.”
At the time of this piece’s publishing, Ye didn’t appear to have addressed the $416,910 suit on social media. But the courtroom confrontation represents one of several that the rapper formerly known as Kanye West is facing.