A little deep dive into Skims

Love her or hate her, Kim K. is hiring the right people.

“My Calvins” might soon be “my Skims”

Substack recently hit a $100M valuation and one of the investors was Jens Grede, a co-founder and CEO of Skims. Skims launched a newsletter a few days later. I know there’s been a lot of chatter of brands like TRR joining the platform but for now, my own Substack feed is pretty devoid of that (unless you count the endless writers offering tips on how to grow your Substack which is semi-annoying). What I do see more often are founders using Substack as a personal platform and then promoting their brands through that first-person POV.

The best pregnancy outfit: a Skims soft lounge dress that stretches with you + that you can wear postpartum

Anyway, when I saw the Skims announcement via Feed Me, I realized that I was literally wearing a Skims crewneck tee and it dawned on me how massive the brand has become. Everyone I know wears Skims. And more importantly, I started thinking a lot about the why and the how. Here’s the thing: your stance on the Kardashian-Jenner clan doesn’t really matter (I loved this story from The Cut on how much the writer hates to admit that she loves her Skims lol) because it’s undeniable that Skims is a success, one with longterm potential. Before we talk about the fun stuff, a recap on the launches and the numbers of the biz so far.

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The history of Skims

• 2019 – Skims launched in September and was co-founded by Kim Kardashian, Emma Grede, and Jens Grede. The first drop was exclusively shapewear and it sold $2M worth of product within minutes. Over 3 million pieces were sold in that first year. (Emma Grede has been involved in a lot of Kardashians businesses btw! She is also the co-founder and CEO of Good American.)