Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand SKIMS is now the official underwear partner of the WNBA, NBA, and USA Basketball. SKIMS also launched menswear in 2022 and is valued at up to $4 billion. Yahoo Finance’s Alexandra Canal, Pras Subramanian, and Josh Schafer weigh in on what this sort of visibility could do for the shapewear brand.
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Video Transcript
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Another thing I’m very focused on, as always, is Kim Kardashian because her company SKIMS is now the official underwear partner for the NBA, the WNBA and US Basketball. According to a press release, SKIMS is going to leverage the power of basketball to generate excitement and demand. It’s also going to be featured across a variety of league platforms. So a lot of different touch points there.
Kim Kardashian did launch SKIMS in 2019. She recently expanded to men’s wear so the perfect opportunity here. It’s valued at $4 billion as of June. And just another way that the devil works hard, but Kris Jenner, her momager, manager, works harder.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: OK. I got to say, the men’s sort of– Talking about undergarments, talking about like grooming, we’re talking about– I think men’s makeup is the next big thing. I really do. I really think that.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: You’re just saying that because you go on camera every day.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: But I never knew it makes such a difference.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: That’s true.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I had no idea. So I’m saying– I’m saying man is like the untapped sort of market. I was reading today that the men’s grooming market is supposed to grow to 115 billion by 2028 and right now it’s around 80. So we’re talking about nearly a double, not double, like a 50% growth rate in that. So I think men are the next untapped sort of market for undergarments, of slimming, makeup, hair, whatever.
JOSH SCHAFER: I’m just all in on SKIMS. I mean, I got to get some of these. If SKIMS are that comfy from the shirts– Yeah. Like I think they look–
And we talked about this just with the initial launch too, it just makes sense to partner with athletes. That’s a great way to get into the men’s market. Have players that they know wearing Skims, get SKIMS all in your face, and then you end up buying them.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I don’t know if you can like de-emphasize sort of like SKIMS like, oh, it’s a women’s thing. It’s like actually no it can be for men too.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: I love that we’re living in a world now where we have a female company tapping men as their next frontier. I love this. This kind of feeds into the whole narrative of a girl summer.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I think it’s– I think she’s hitting the nail on the head right there. I think it’s really smart.
JOSH SCHAFER: And the partnership with the WNBA too also stands out just as far as SKIMS– reminding people that SKIMS is active-wear. Because I think people like it for comfort in the same way that we like a lot of things that sort of become that athleisure wear for comfort. But you’re partnering with the WNBA those women are going to be wearing it, obviously I would assume, while they’re playing. And being able to brand it around that makes a lot of sense.
There’s a lot of research out there on how connecting with women’s basketball players and then women’s soccer players. The US Women’s National Team has been so good at marketing. When you can tap into that women’s sports market it is great advertising.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: And if you’re watching it on a TV it’s there, it’s in your face. People that haven’t even thought about it see it, want it, want to try it. I’m very curious how lucrative of an opportunity it is moving forward.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: So is SKIMS also kind of have the spanx thing where they kind of slim? So they do both slim and–
ALEXANDRA CANAL: That was really what brought them prominence–
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: That’s what I thought.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: –was the shape-wear. And now they’ve expanded to pajamas, shirts, men’s wear. There’s more to come on this and I feel like we could even see more from Kim K moving forward.
