The Gap has signed a ten-year partnership deal with Kanye West’s Yeezy brand in a bid to usher in a younger audience. With Gen Zers seeking out affordable clothing with cultural cachet without compromising on style and quality, the collaboration exposes both lines to new and niche customers.

Roddy Ricch’s single ‘The Box’ has achieved six weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, boosted by memes and dances that shot him to TikTok fame. The track’s enduring popularity shows how TikTok is influencing the music people listen to, with meme-able sounds increasingly reigning supreme.

From Run-DMC’s ‘My Adidas’ to Migos’ ‘Versace’, hip hop has a long-standing relationship with fashion. But where rappers once vied to get recognition from haute couture houses, today it’s the labels that are doing the courting. How are luxury brands tapping the cultural cachet of rap royalty?

Branded merchandise was once solely found at business conventions and in the wardrobes of fervent fans, but it’s enjoying a renaissance as Gen Yers and Zers seek new ways of expressing their identity. What does this resurgence reveal of the shifting nature of consumer-brand relationships?