Kanye West Hires Gosha Rubchinskiy as New Yeezy Head of Design

The same year Rubchinskiy designed the World Cup-influenced line, he made headlines after a 16-year-old boy accused Gosha of sending inappropriate messages. The teen shared alleged screenshots of their exchanges—which show Rubchinskiy asking him to send him images of himself—to the since-deleted High Fashion Talk online group.

Adidas said it would look into the claims made by the underage individual, though Rubchinskiy’s team firmly denied the allegations in an official statement, maintaining it was “not sexual” and the sort of interaction that “happens all the time” when “street casting for a look book shoot.”

“Gosha did a face time with him and then he asked for a photo to have on file with all the others,” Rubchinskiy’s team stated. “The person said he wasn’t alone and couldn’t take photo so Gosha suggested he just quickly goes to the bathroom and take a quick photo on the mirror, so he could show the rest of the team and have it on file.”

Rubchinskiy’s team went on to claim that the screenshots had been “altered” and “taken out of context” to make the designer “look bad.” They added, “The person started contacting us very often demanding an answer about the casting and became a bit weird. So Gosha blocked him and we think this is why the person is trying to make Gosha look bad, and turn what was a totally innocent street casting look something that it was not.”

Yeezy’s Gosha announcement arrives a little over a year after Adidas terminated its Yeezy deal with Kanye over a string of anti-Semitic statements the rapper made, including his fondness of Hitler. The deal was meant to run until 2026.