NEW YORK — Every few minutes, one of the thousands of pedestrians on Fifth Avenue will come to a halt at the corner of 52nd Street, seized by the sight of a 15-foot nude statue looming from inside the Skims storefront.
The giant sculpture, designed by artist Vanessa Beecroft, occupies a prominent place inside the Skims store here, and has become something of a visual signature for the shapewear brand, founded by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede in 2019. A slightly smaller iteration of the sculpture can be found in Skims’ Los Angeles outpost.
Skims stores have no problem drawing a crowd. But they’re designed for so much more than that, Jens Grede, the brand’s chief executive, told The Business of Fashion. Where many fashion start-ups treat their stores as visual billboards, Skims’ rapidly growing and increasingly global retail network are driving major sales for Skims’ stretchy loungewear, ultra-compressive bodysuits and other products.
“Stores should be powerhouses of productivity,” Grede said. “It’s probably our single biggest growth lever.”
The Fifth Avenue flagship, which opened late last year, was designed by Rafael de Cárdenas, a frequent creative collaborator of the brand. The store features soft curved interiors and mannequins of different sizes and skin tones, inviting shoppers to touch and feel the merchandise to confirm that, yes, Skims is designed for them.
That vision is about to go global. This year, Skims is on track to open 16 new locations in the US, including a flagship in Chicago, bringing its total domestic footprint to 22 stores. It will also open five locations in Mexico through a franchise partnership this fall and a flagship on London’s Regent Street next year. Plans are underway for stores in Dubai via an agreement with Al Tayer Group. In total, Skims will enter seven new markets over the next nine months. Locations are in high-end, high-traffic shopping districts, including Sunset Boulevard in LA and Regent Street in London.
Grede looks to Alo Yoga and Vuori, digitally native brands that now have around 100 stores each, as models for where Skims might be headed in the next year or two, as annual sales are projected to cross $1 billion. Longer term, he’s got bigger ambitions.
“We’re trying to build the Apple stores of apparel,” Grede said. “The biggest barrier for customers is us simply not being available in physical retail where people live.”
Head of the Start-Up Class
When Skims entered the intimates space, mainstays like Victoria’s Secret and Hanes were rapidly shedding market share to a crowded slate of would-be disruptors that included Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty, ThirdLove, Parade, AdoreMe, Cuup and MeUndies. Many of these contenders hit a wall. Victoria’s Secret acquired AdoreMe in January 2023; later that year, Parade was acquired by a licensing company in a fire sale.
Skims is thriving. The brand is profitable, and posted a compound annual growth rate of 37 percent between 2022 and 2024, according to Grede. That puts its projected 2025 sales in the range of $1 billion; among the Victoria’s Secret challengers, only American Eagle’s Aerie, with $1.7 billion in sales in the year ending in February, is bigger.
Of course, Skims had an advantage right out of the gate: Kardashian and her massive audience on social media. While the brand still relies on its famous founder for hype — in February, Kardashian appeared as a “Fairy Butt Mother” in a video campaign for new shapewear styles — it’s emphasised the quality and comfort of its products in more recent campaigns, such as a collaboration with Team USA for the Summer Olympics in 2024. (Kardashian remains involved in “every major creative decision,” she said in an email.)
“Skims has done an excellent job of being truly functional,” said Gabriella Santaniello, a retail consultant based in the Los Angeles area. “There are just certain things that when [Kim] launched that filled a need for most women … And I don’t love the Kardashians.”
The Skims Secret
Product, according to Grede, is Skims’ first and foremost priority. Its fabric franchises, including the “Fits Everybody” jersey collection of bodysuits and tanks, or the “Soft Lounge” ribbed line, were years in the making prior to launch.
“Skims solved a problem for me that I felt was missing in the marketplace,” Kardashian told The Business of Fashion in a written statement. “Our success comes from three core ingredients: inclusivity, innovation, and relentless product perfection. We prioritised a fit-first approach, designing for all body types and skin tones to make every customer feel seen.”
But nothing Skims offers is what Santaniello would call revolutionary, she said. Skims is far from the only brand offering a size- and skin tone-inclusive assortment, though it does a better job than most, judging by online customer feedback. Most of the categories it stocks — underwear, shapewear, swim and lounge — are becoming standard-issue for any number of intimates or activewear labels.
Rather, Skims’ formula for success is a confluence of product, merchandising, store design and marketing.
Skims has an uncanny ability to capitalise on major cultural moments as jumping off points for its marketing campaigns, said Nick Brown, managing partner of venture firm Imaginary, an early investor of the brand. Brown pointed to the launch of Skims’ men’s line in 2023 featuring football player Nick Bosa and other athletes as models in the ads. Another campaign tapped “White Lotus” actors Simona Tabasco and Beatrice Grannò after the second season wrapped.
“They’ve married product market fit and product marketing fit with really intelligent execution and I think that’s the secret sauce,” said Brown.
Global Ambitions
That mix can be found in a growing number of markets.
In addition to franchise partners, Skims will continue to expand its roster of wholesale channels this year and next, including Globus in Switzerland, Harvey Nichols in Ireland, Beymen in Turkey and LuisaViaRoma in Italy. Currently, Skims has 57 points of distribution globally. In the US, it’s stocked at Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Ssense, among others.
“Generally what we see when we open a store in a market where we also have wholesale and a big e-commerce penetration is that it’s all additive to one another,” said Grede. One year after opening a store in Austin, he added, the rate of customer acquisition per day in the Austin market across all channels increased more than twofold.
Skims already has significant international brand recognition: 40 percent of Skims’ site traffic comes from abroad.
For now, Skims will take its time waiting for the right locations in every city, said Grede. That means spots on prestigious retail thoroughfares, in grade-A malls and outdoor lifestyle centres. As for its long-rumoured IPO, “it’s in the cards,” he added, “but there’s no urgency.”
With its upcoming activewear collaboration with Nike — originally set to drop this spring but pushed out to later in the year due to production delays, according to Bloomberg — Skims is continuing its pace in launching new categories at least once a year.
“Long-term, we aim to lead by innovating across categories,” Kardashian said. “We’re building a lasting cultural force — collaborating with global leaders, solving real needs and inspiring confidence in everybody for decades to come.”
