Can Kim Kardashian Convince Men to Buy Shapewear?
Kim Kardashian West has gotten the American masses to drink magical weight loss tea and the president to free a woman sentenced to life in prison for a non-violent drug offense. But can the ultimate and perhaps original influencer, get men to...wear shapewear? You know, the nylon, flesh-toned tubes known in polite society as “foundational garments” that slim your hips, tuck in your stomach, and perform other feats of sorcery? It may sound like a wonky plotline in an unauthorized reboot of Seinfeld, but it seems as though this dystopian future is not so far off.
After overcoming its unfortunate original name—Kimono, which was changed to Skims after a social media fracas over cultural appropriation—Kardashian West’s shapewear brand, which is now named SKIMS, appears to be a success, with many of its collections selling out completely, some allegedly within minutes.
But Kardashian West is nothing if not a woman who sees the potential for expansion, and she recently hinted that SKIMS may be working on the holy grail of women’s trends adapted for the men’s market: men’s shapewear. “I have been asked a lot about the men’s question, and I would love to do that, and I hope that we’re working on that soon,” Kardashian West told E! News in an interview last week. “There’s some fun stuff in the works.”
The flourishing of men’s fashion has meant in part that men are less ashamed, less frightened, about trying new trends in womenswear. Odell Beckham Jr. wore a Thom Browne skirt to the Met Gala, for example, and our November issue featured a portfolio of men in makeup. But men’s fashion has shifted dramatically from the skinny fit that Hedi Slimane first revolutionized at Dior Homme at the turn of the century (!) towards a much looser, baggier, and even huge silhouette. One of the benefits of this gargantuan, almost sumptuous fit—as any fan of Phoebe Philo-era Celine will tell you—is that it doesn’t require shapewear, or really any attention to underwear at all.
In fact, in addition to the upset over the original name of SKIMS, many fashion soothsayers questioned whether the very idea of shapewear remains relevant. (Spanx, the original shapewear giant, has struggled to rebrand as body-positive in the past few years.) But as Kardashian’s corseted Mugler dresses have demonstrated over the past year, shapewear is still very much a necessary part of a woman’s wardrobe. (Many of the super-short dresses on Fashion Nova, for example, or Khloe Kardashian’s airtight Good American jeans, would do well with some shapewear underneath.) SKIMS also looks suspiciously like Kanye West’s early Yeezy collections; it’s possible some of the fans snapping up the stuff are just wearing skin-colored bodysuits under sweatshirts. (Reader...they are.)
Nonetheless, aside from a small line of tummy-tucking compression shirts and briefs on the Spanx website, and compression tights made by brands like Under Armour and which are designed to be worn during workouts, the menswear shapewear market is almost nonexistent. And while fashion is getting bigger, slim-cut pants stubbornly remain the standard for many men, from J. Crew to Fashion Nova to Saint Laurent and Zara’s Saint Laurent knockoffs. The default jean right now in hip hop—where the baggy fit was first popularized almost four decades ago—is a super distressed skinny jean. Tunnel fits are a dagger to the heart of anyone who believes that skinny jeans are over—every guy on LeagueFits is wearing skinny jeans. (Except PJ Tucker—God bless this man's Fashion jeans!) There are also a lot of taut silhouettes on celebrities like Billy Porter and Ezra Miller, who often wear womenswear or borrow from its shapes. And it’s certainly not just women who are taking style notes from that movement. All of these outfits are the sort that drive women to reach for shapewear.
Not every man has the pin-shaped stems of Kevin Durant or the Louis XIV gams of Billy Porter, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to dress like them. The celebrity, as Kardashian West knows, holds more sway over what men actually want to wear than the runway. In other words, the market for men’s shapewear, I will argue until the day I die (or until everyone starts wearing Loewe djellabas only), is there. But the idea that you might wear something to make you look a little trimmer under your shirt might still be too much for male vanity, even if no one can see the garment. (I can already imagine the social media snark this post is going to invite!) Until, like makeup and skirts and nail polish and Tabis, they’re not! Men have largely been immune to the reaches of influencers, or the kind of consumer relationship with a celebrity, whether their fame is dubious or begrudgingly legitimate, that drives them to buy something. But if anyone can get them under the spell of a one-woman all-out Instagram mandate, it’s Kim Kardashian West.
Originally Appeared on GQ
