How Kim Kardashian created shapewear that's flattering and comfortable - no matter what your size

If, a year ago, you had asked which retail entrepreneur might make a meaningful impact on the set-in-its-ways lingerie market, the reality television star Kim Kardashian West may not have been first to come to mind.

Yet since she launched her label SKIMS in September 2019, the brand has refreshed perceptions around the ‘shapewear’ category.

“Dusty” is the word which her SKIMS co-founder Jens Grede uses to describe the way things were. He’s not wrong; typically beige, typically marketed in stale formats, it was hardly something to get excited about shopping for, or pulling out of the lingerie drawer to hoik on as you get ready for that wedding, or an otherwise-glamorous night out.

This week, SKIMS launches on Net-a-Porter.com, sitting its £19 ‘Fits Everybody’ briefs and £35 ‘Seamless Sculpt’ bras alongside the great and good of the designer fashion world. It bolsters the reasoning that SKIMS should be taken seriously as a key player in the underwear market, rounding off an impressive first year of trading with nearly four million units sold to date.

Kardashian West is, as ever, her own best poster-woman, and summed up the phenomenon she has created with a line on why it matters to so many to look put together, starting with the underpinnings. "The key to looking snatched," she notes, "is shapewear".

“We’ve been very lucky and had an incredible first year,” says Grede, who previously founded Los Angeles-based Frame denim. “Kim has always been passionate about undergarments – she would construct her own styles by cutting up pieces and dying them to match her skin tone because she couldn’t find anything on the market that worked. Offerings felt out of date, and specifically in shapewear, innovations weren’t taking place in a meaningful way.”

“We were able to bring innovation and excitement to a dusty category women were previously embarrassed to speak about,” he continues. “Our focus on body positivity and inclusivity has broadened the appeal of these garments and enabled the conversation around shapewear to evolve.”

What SKIMS has done well, that other brands didn’t before, is to recognise from Kardashian West’s personal experiences why many women did not traditionally feel spoken to by lingerie brands. Whatever you make of Kardashian West’s personal image and the way she has disrupted the narratives on beauty, feminism and body image, it must be noted that the range of products she and her team have designed is thoughtful, made to match all skin tones, and in sizes spanning three XS to four XL.

“Developing proprietary materials in comprehensive shade offerings and across an extensive size range was of the utmost importance to Kim and I from the outset,” explains Grede. “From the women we showcase in our campaigns to those who design, try and wear-test our products, we prioritise diversity across every element of the brand.”

The marketing imagery has been as important as the product - all images include a diverse range of women as models. As with everything Kardashian West does, social media is at the heart of the brand and is used in strategic ways to tease new products before they launch as ‘drops’, building the anticipation from 2.2 million Instagram followers.

“A drop model has made sense for us since the beginning as a way to ensure we’re always able to bring our customer newness,” says Grede. “SKIMS has over three million waitlist sign ups at this stage - we use them as a tactic to calculate interest in a collection before it even drops. [When things sell out] we can then quickly follow up with meaningful restocks.”

One of the brand’s greatest success stories during the pandemic has also been to launch loungewear. The SKIMS Cozy collection launched in the spring, with its knitted bouclé tracksuit bottoms and tank tops fast becoming some of the most-Instagrammed loungewear looks from celebrities in lockdown.

“The overwhelmingly positive reaction from customers indicated straight away that we needed to expand in this category, so we fast tracked development into more collections, styles, colors and fabrics which we saw further success in,” says Grede. “The feedback from our audience drives so much of our business and decision making. Loungewear is a key example of giving our customers exactly what they want when they want it - simply by listening to them.”