Skims

Kim Kardashian didn’t build SKIMS by going pure DTC. And thats maybe a sign of the times for brands.

Whilst working at Nike, the advice everyone gives you is to “find something you can own”. During my time on the snowboarding business that was easy, as along with some amazing team mates, we owned the snowboarding category head to toe in what was a memorable time for us all. Upon leaving that part of the business I got to own the launch of the Metcon Crossfit shoe to a very dedicated to community which surpassingly drew a lot of similarities to the skateboarding and snowboarding culture I grew up with.

Following that I moved into the women’s business and honestly, I struggled to find where I fit in. Influencer culture was at its height, we didn’t have a sport category or community to lean into because a gender is very different to a sport. This was marketing to half the planet. It did lead me to some very interesting insights work to try and create cohorts amongst vast swathes of the population which I still use today and helped me take out objectivity from my skill set. One challenge that a lot of people have is their own bias clouds their view of the world for example in snowboarding some people love a certain style because thats what they grew up idolising but maybe isnt the same as what the consumer is actually buying into, so this was a great learning at the time.

But the marketing itself, I was still struggling to find my place. So I went back to the “find something you can own”. Sneakers - had plenty of people. Running - lots of people a lot more passionate about it than me. You get the point. The one thing that I could see as a huge opportunity, which no one seemed to own was our sports bra and tights business. So for the next two years I spent all my time at Nike focused on that part of the business. Over $2bn revenue and for many at Nike, in between running a marathon in under 2 hrs, winning world cups, NBA finals, this category was overlooked.

So we started with insights, we focused on trying to clean up and simplify our line and reduce the number of SKUs, and ensure that we offered tights which had great handfeel, no issues with opacity and could be easily used at every part of the day. We built out a room, we tried to get everyone to understand the opportunity at hand and focused our efforts on the category.

One of the things that we did make sure of was also to warn of potential competitors in the space. I could see brands coming in as disruptors, including Alo Yoga, Lululemon, Gymshark and many more. The thing that these brands had was a point of view that they owned. All was high end Yoga. Gymshark was the Crossfit/lifting community. Of course Lululemon had their moment in 2013 when the then CEO Chip Wilson said when questioned about quality of their tights “It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there over a period of time, how much they use it. Some women’s bodies just don’t work with our tights.”

Which of course horrified many but also was a subtle signal that for many they wanted to be a Lululemon consumer. Then of course you had a lot of DTC brands including Girlfriend collective and every celebrity/trainer starting their own brand. It was a quite simple strategy from each of these. Get 1% market share from the incumbent brands.

So I have always been fascinated by this space because of the fluidity of the market, the speed of change from consumers and how brands take hold. One brand I have been fascinated by is SKIMS, originally going to be called Kimono Intimates, which started as the idea of Emma Grede who had started Good American. She went to Kim Kardashian with the idea who had been making her own shape wear for years to fit her body and skin tone. So in that regards it was a great mix of business acumen and product insight. It was also a category when you look at shape wear that had incumbents such as Spanx and then brands which were built for concealment, not confidence.

I find it fascinating because of the way they have approached building the brand from a marketing standpoint. From the outside looking in, it has all the ingredients for making the perfect DTC brand:

• Product with high repeat purchase rate

• Easily packable for good logistics costs

• One of the worlds most influential people when it comes to building brands and driving conversion

With Kim Kardashian, they could easily have made the brand DTC only online, driven through Kims channels. They could have kept things tight and likely spent less on marketing and driven decent margin following the lead of Warby Parker, Allbirds, and Monos

But they didnt and why not? And does this mean the age of DTC pure brands such as is over?

Well, I think its it’s something to do with the old adage of “want to go quick, go alone, want to go far, go together”. They are trying to build a brand that will become a staple vs a flash in the pan. Does that mean DTC brand era is over? No. But in their case they have chosen a different path than the one silver bullet of Kim driving a DTC business, so lets explore what they are doing :

1. Great product : They started there. The reviews flooded in, friends tell friends, an important part of the marketing in itself. Worth remembering that no amount of marketing without great product will solve your problem long term.
2. Disruptive products : The nipple bra anyone? This one tapped into the cultural zeitgeist of style today, whilst also solving issues for women who have had to go through a mastectomy. So it’s a functional product that is also importantly wildly shareable.
The pierced nipple bra? They took the original and pushed the envelope. They use these as the way to drive organic brand awareness and have very shareable moments. How many buy them? Who knows, but they created so much value from a couple of campaigns that spread wider than any Super Bowl commercial.
This is such an overlooked and undervalued part of any marketing mix.

3. Collabs : They tapped into the key times of the year, with Fendi x SKIMS which put them on another level which sold out instantly with over $1M+ in under a minute. The North Face x SKIMS collection in winter in their own color palette was next and more recently the Nike x Skims collection which is a story for later on.

4. Partnerships : WNBA Becoming the underwear partner of a thriving league as its popularity exploded was a master stroke as they got to work with many of the most iconic women in global sport.

5. B2B & DTC Physical retail : If you walk into any major high end department store in the US such as Nordstroms, Selfridges in the UK, Die Bijenkorf in Amsterdam, you will see either a shop in shop or their own space with fitting rooms etc. That distribution has grown to stores like END carry the collection and this goes along with their own DTC stores which are popping up across the US.

6. Timely marketing : Everyone has watched and talked about White Lotus so pulling in breakout stars from The White Lotus (Simona Tabasco & Beatrice Grannò) was a master stroke. The post went semi-viral, with marketers calling it a “holy‑shit moment”

7.Only SKIMS marketing : Some brands attain that “only they could do this”. Nike during a World Cup. Liquid Death x YETI. The stuff of legend. SKIMS have kind of mastered this on the women’s side of things. They are putting out ads which only they could do. Couple examples below…. I would love to have seen someone who rolled in with the brief to the agency on these ones. I doff my cap to you.

So it was likely 7 things (and of course Kim, so maybe 8) but it wasnt one single thing it was likely doing many things well converging to create momentum.

The next chapter with Nike?

Around a year ago (yes on earnings day for nike) they announced a new partnership to launch a collection together which dropped in Autumn ‘25 to rave reviews and a stellar launch moment (congrats to the team who worked on it!)

Where it’s interesting is that after 10 years of Nike focusing on women’s performance, winning and dreaming crazy dreams, with the brand still struggling to find a foothold on women’s they are choosing to work with a brand like SKIMS to try and get them going again. Some of the SKIMS work reminds me of some of the old Nike campaign work for a tight where the tagline was “best butt ever” which was something I had tried to find since but seems to have been wiped from the corridors of history such was the disdain for the work so this U turn is interesting.

All that to be said, I think it’s a smart move from Nike which has been reflected even when it was announced as the stock price jumped 10% so there is excitement about it in the market. Long term it will help Nike, especially on the women’s side, get back moving as they have needed a kickstart to compete against the disrupter brands and this looks to be one of the things to try and make it happen, at least thats what they will be hoping inside the berm.

Let me know what you think about their journey and other brands you would like a deep dive on?