Skims, the underwear and apparel brand founded by Kim Kardashian, is hoping to attract new customers: men.
The four-year-old shapewear brand is expanding beyond female clothing and into men’s products, with a new lineup launching Thursday that includes briefs, undershirts, boxers and leggings. Prices range from $16 to $54 depending on the item. Men’s sizes will also encompass Skims’ body positivity focus and stretch from extra small to 5X.
Expanding into menswear is also a possible prelude to an initial public offering for the company, however nothing has officially been announced.
As a business strategy, Skims stretching out into men’s apparel appears to be a no-brainer, considering that men’s underwear is a $5.7 billion market, with sales up 2% over the past year, according to Circana’s consumer tracking data given to CNN. Skims also said that men already account for more than 10% of its existing customer base. Three collections made from different fabrics will be released on Thursday: cotton, stretch and sport.
“The expansion into the menswear space is a major milestone for the brand, and a testament to Skims’ commitment to providing solutions for everybody,” said Kardashian in a press release. Skims has primarily focused on women’s clothing, such as bras and underwear, but in 2020 released a unisex collection of robes and onesies.
Skims also enlisted three high-profile athletes to be the face of the collection, San Francisco 49ers player Nick Bosa, Brazilian soccer superstar Neymar Jr. and NBA player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Skims has been a major success story for Kardashian with the privately held company recently valued at a whopping $4 billion. It recently raised $270 million in its latest fundraising round this past July.
This latest round was led by Wellington Management, a firm known for taking companies public. Skims also recently hired a chief financial officer, Andy Muir, who previously worked at Nike. Bringing a CFO on board is sometimes a sign that an IPO is coming.
Jens Grede, Skims’ CEO, recently told Dealbook that stock investors have shown an increased interest in consumer-oriented businesses like Skims, and that an IPO is something the company wants.
Additionally, Grede told the Wall Street Journal on Monday, which first reported the news, that the brand is projected to reach $750 million in net sales this year. He didn’t say if or when Skims will IPO, but added that he thinks “Skims deserves to be a public company when the time is right.”
Kardashian recently told CNN’s Poppy Harlow that she created Skims because there was a problem in clothing matching her skin color.
“For me, I was just looking for a solution to the fact that I love to wear shapewear and there wasn’t a color tone that fit my skin tone, let alone most of my friends,” she told Harlow at the Time 100 Summit in April, adding that there “was nothing in between” a pale or a black color in shapewear at the time.
For Kardashian, the brand was aimed at filling a need that wasn’t being served in the marketplace, offering a wide variety of shapewear colors for women.
Her business ambition also has expanded beyond Skims with a private equity firm she co-founded last year called SKYY Partners.
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