It looks like Kanye West’s Yeezy threads aren’t the only items of his that can sell for a good buck or two. The bulletproof vest that he wore during the making of his album has just been sold for a staggering $75k.
The vest was signed by Ye himself and was one of the many rare items on sale as part of the “Handbags x HYPE” auction held by auction house Christie’s last week.
The black vest was originally gifted to a security guard, when sold to a reseller for $20,000 and then was sold for $75,000 at the auction on December 9, nearly triple what the auction house estimated it would be picked up for. The buyer also received a one-of-one non-fungible token (NFT) version of the vest featuring digital 3D data.
According to the auction listing, the Donda vest contains ballistic panels, hand-painted ‘DONDA’ text on the back and Kanye’s autograph which reads ‘MBD’, standing for ‘My Body Different’.
“The Donda bulletproof vest was designed as a metaphor for Wests’s militaristic perspective, reflecting his need for only the essentials to survive and his readiness to go on stage and risk his life for his music and craft,” the listing also says.
The vest was debuted by Kanye West himself during the second Donda listening session at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on August 5. It was worn while he finished the album in his studio at the stadium, as shown in the livestream following the event.
Other Donda collaborators also seen rocking the vests while in the studio, which was part of a dress code enforced by the rapper.
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“When we went to Ye’s shit he made us all wear like [Yeezy],” Brooklyn rapper Fivio Foreign revealed, who was a collaborator on the album. “We had the vest on, he made us all wear Donda merch. I thought we were on Donda timing, I guess to get us in [that mindset].”
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