Kim Kardashian’s Skims shapewear brand has acquired Skkn by Kim, the beauty brand she founded in 2022 and licensed to Coty. Kardashian’s personal 80 per cent stake and Coty’s 20 per cent stake in the Skkn brand will be entirely transferred to Skims, combining her two businesses into one empire worth over $3 billion.
It’s Kardashian’s third attempt at building a lasting beauty empire after KKW Beauty and Skkn’s initial iteration under Coty.
“My mission has always been to create products that resonate deeply — whether it’s shapewear and lingerie that empower or makeup and skincare that transform,” said Kardashian, Skims chief creative officer and co-founder, in a press release. “Uniting everything under the Skims brand streamlines that vision.”
“This acquisition isn’t just about growth,” Skims CEO and co-founder Jens Grede said in a press release. “It’s about the strength of our brand and our ability to enter a new category with authority.”
Kardashian first entered the beauty category with KKW Beauty, which launched in 2017 with a line of contouring kits that tapped into the trend she popularised, before expanding into fragrance. Kardashian shuttered the line and then launched Skkn by Kim in 2022, introducing a nine-step, high-end skincare system priced at $630, followed by cosmetics marketed as “high-performance glam”. Skkn by Kim will now be absorbed and rebranded under the Skims name, with the latter expanding into beauty, skincare and fragrance; products are slated to debut in 2026.
This consolidation signals a desire to build a unified lifestyle brand with multi-category dominance. And for Becky Owen, CMO at influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy, there are practical advantages. “Consolidating operations presents a savvy move, streamlining the businesses by reducing operational costs while creating more opportunities to scale both brands,” she says.
The question now: can the Skims effect finally make Kardashian’s beauty ambitions stick?
A smart alignment
Experts aren’t shocked by the move. “Kardashian has made a big impact with Skims and now wants the beauty brand to become a more central part of the growth story. In this sense, it is logical to buy back Coty’s stake in the business so that Kardashian can take it in a direction that aligns with her vision,” says Neil Saunders, managing director of Globaldata’s retail division. Owen agrees. “Skims has demonstrably achieved a higher degree of market penetration and cultural relevance. Its marketing strategies have consistently yielded impactful campaigns and collaborations, significantly influencing contemporary discourse. Skkn by Kim, on the other hand, hasn’t quite landed the same punch.” she says.
In six years, Skims has reshaped the shapewear industry, offering inclusive shades, styles (including adaptive lines for consumers with limited mobility), sizes (XXS to 4XL) and fabric innovation — building a cult following and a wait list at every drop. Since its launch, the company has expanded into loungewear, ski, swim, menswear and activewear, while collaborating with brands such as Fendi, The North Face, Swarovski and Nike. High-profile campaigns featuring Paris Hilton, Addison Rae, Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Lana Del Rey — as well as partnerships with athletes across the NFL, NBA and the Olympics — have kept Skims at the forefront of pop culture. Its growing retail ambitions across the US are only in their infancy, with six locations spanning San Francisco, New York and an LA flagship set to open on 1 April. All of this has cemented Skims’s cultural and industry relevance, generating a $3 billion-plus valuation.
Skkn by Kim, on the other hand, has struggled to gain traction in beauty’s oversaturated market. “Kardashian was largely the sales driver at the time, but partnering with celebrity aesthetician Joanna Czech was a savvy move because it positioned the skincare line alongside established skincare brands while benefitting from Joanna’s red carpet and celebrity affiliations,” says Suzanne Scott, associate global beauty director at strategy firm Seen Group. But since then, interest levels have waned, and the brand has gone quiet, still only available via its website.
Caner Daywood, content director at social creator agency Buttermilk, attributes Skkn’s challenges to its over-reliance on Kardashian’s persona. “Kardashian’s beauty ventures have relied heavily on her own celebrity, but beauty brands and celebrity beauty brands have long moved on. Now, it’s about community and cultural alignment,” Daywood says. “This time around, it should be less about being the face of the brand and more about curating a world — a lesson the company should take from Skims and other beauty brands like [Hailey Bieber’s] Rhode.” For Scott, bringing Skkn by Kim under the Skims umbrella allows the company to tap into the successful Skims toolkit to sell beauty, all while borrowing some of the cultural cachet the latter has built.
A Skims success plan
Regardless of Skims’s success in shapewear and fashion, experts say the company will have a tougher time cracking beauty. “One of the issues is that the beauty business is way more crowded than the shapewear sector, so the brand will need to put the work in,” says Saunders.
Kardashian’s role now lies in her ability to set the stage as she did for Skims, not staying in the spotlight but taking a page from the Skims ambassador playbook and building a roster of project-based influential figures who can carry the brand through cultural peaks without solely relying on Kardashian’s star power. Experts say the move will help pad the brand’s position in the market and better shield it from growing consumer fatigue from celebrity brands.
“Depending on Skims Beauty’s NPD timeline, this agile, in-the-moment ambassador strategy could be a valuable tactic,” Scott says. “It will mean the brand will be firmly on culture’s pulse, which is seen to drive consumer interest and will feel like the brand has an indefinable personality and point of view. This will give it some resilience against the frantic trend cycle as well as the authority to respond to cultural topics and conversation.”
Skims beauty will also need to identify a genuine gap in the market. “They will need to find points of difference in beauty that focus on solving real skin and beauty issues and making consumers feel empowered. It’s a Skims strategy and there’s a natural extension in applying this philosophy to beauty,” explains Saunders. Better yet, Daywood recommends the company lean into a feeling to own, just like it did with body confidence. “One way forward is to dig into genuine beauty needs. What are beauty consumers exhausted by? What beauty staples do they feel are missing? That’s the ticket to lasting success,” says Michael Appler, VP of marketing at analytics platform Trendalytics. The other critical development will be product innovation as brands within the beauty market grapple with next-generation products and formulas to spur spending excitement. Price will also be a determining factor of success, and should fit within the Skims customers’ comfort level.
Taking key learnings from Skims’s market success will be the difference between Skkn by Kim and Skims beauty, potentially offering a lasting beauty win for the Kardashian empire. “The key for Skims beauty — like Skims — will be reacting quickly to trends, using influencers and celebrities to hijack cultural conversations and leverage limited-edition drops and community-driven engagement, while answering a beauty need and building a coveted world,” Owen says. “Easier said than done,” adds Appler.
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