Skims

Skims is an American shapewear, underwear and loungewear brand founded in Los Angeles in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and the Swedish entrepreneur Jens Grede, who is its chief executive, with Emma Grede as a founding partner. It launched in September 2019, sells shapewear in nine skin-tone shades and sizes from XXS to 5XL, and was valued at $5 billion in November 2025.

The Kimono problem

The brand was announced in June 2019 under the name Kimono Intimates. The reaction was fast. Critics in Japan and abroad pointed out that a kimono is a traditional Japanese garment with centuries of history, and the trademark filings looked like an attempt to own the word. In July 2019 the mayor of Kyoto wrote to Kardashian asking her to reconsider.

In August 2019 she dropped the name. The brand that launched the following month was called Skims, a short word that suggests both skin and a garment that skims the body. Few lingerie launches have been so thoroughly tested before a single item went on sale.

Who built it

Kardashian had talked for years about altering shapewear herself to get the fit and color she wanted. Jens Grede brought the operating side. He had co-founded the fashion agency Wednesday and the denim brand Frame, and his wife Emma Grede, later the co-founder of Good American, joined Skims as a founding partner. The structure, a famous face backed by people who knew how to run a supply chain, was the template for many celebrity brands that followed.

Nine shades and a wide size chart

The launch range was shapewear, from bodysuits to shorts and control briefs, in nine skin tones. The shade range was the headline. Traditional shapewear had come in black, white and one or two beiges, and Skims treated color as a basic feature rather than an extra.

The first drop in September 2019 sold out within minutes, and the company reported selling about three million products in its first year. The size range was later set at XXS to 5XL.

From shapewear to everything else

Skims expanded quickly. Loungewear, lingerie, bras and accessories followed, and in October 2023 the brand launched menswear. It became the official apparel supplier for Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2021, and in September 2023 it became the official underwear partner of the NBA and WNBA.

Collaborations kept it in the news. An October 2021 collection with the Italian house Fendi was estimated to have sold about $3 million of product in its first ten minutes.

NikeSkims

The largest partnership came in 2025, with the launch of NikeSkims, a women's activewear line made with Nike. It marked the company's first major move into performance clothing, a category where its soft compression fabrics had obvious uses.

The valuation ladder

Skims raised money often, and each round set a higher number:

• April 2021: about $1.6 billion
• January 2022: about $3.2 billion
• July 2023: about $4 billion
• November 2025: about $5 billion, after a $225 million round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives

CNBC reported at the time of the 2025 round that the company was nearing $1 billion in annual net sales, about six years after launch. It had 18 stores in the United States, in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta, plus one in Mexico, and planned to open more abroad in 2026. Its products are also sold through Nordstrom.

Skims in lingerie history

Shapewear has a long lineage: the corset, the girdle, the panty girdle, then Spanx and its footless tights in 2000. Skims did not invent a new garment. Its contribution was commercial and visual: shapewear sold like a fashion line, in a wide range of skin tones, photographed on a range of bodies, and marketed through one of the largest personal audiences on the internet.

The result is a company that started with bodysuits and briefs and now competes with sportswear giants, lingerie chains and loungewear labels at once. The shapewear is still there, in nine shades, and still the product most customers try first.

Last updated October 1, 2026