When Skims reveals a new ad campaign, the internet pays attention.
Kim Kardashian’s brand, known for its underwear, loungewear and shapewear collections, generates buzz about the influential people involved that goes far beyond what products they’re modeling.
On March 25, Skims released an ad campaign for its new Wedding Shop starring Alex Cooper, the host of the ultra-popular Call Her Daddy podcast. She’s the No. 2 podcaster on Spotify, but not the kind of conventional celebrity typically tapped for major ad campaigns.
A Skims press release said that Cooper was the “perfect” model for this campaign, “not only for how she connects herself to people and moments in culture, but her own individual cultural relevance.” That seems to be Skims’s model for all of its campaigns of late. The brand did not immediately respond to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.
“I’ve always loved Skims, and I was so excited when they asked me to star in the campaign,” Cooper said in the press release. “To be a part of the launch ahead of my own wedding makes it such an extra fun celebration.”
Kardashian, who founded Skims in 2019 with Emma Grede, is also the brand’s chief creative officer. She has been famous for being famous for nearly two decades, maintaining relevance by starting conversations. She’s tapping models for Skims who are right in the middle of the zeitgeist themselves. As of 2023, the brand is worth $4 billion.
For a holiday-themed loungewear ad, Skims featured Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, his wife Brittany Mahomes and their children for a campaign in November, amid the Chiefs’ hot streak and Brittany’s appearance at games alongside Taylor Swift.
Ahead of the Super Bowl, Usher starred in a Skims menswear ad. As everyone was dissecting their high-profile relationships, Kourtney Kardashian and Megan Fox posed together for Skims.
Hannah Eve, founder and CEO of the Current Agency, a social media marketing firm, told Yahoo Entertainment that Skims is strategically choosing buzzy influencers and celebrities to model its clothing in a way that seems more like a magazine cover than a fashion brand.
“Skims is solidifying themselves in the fabric of pop culture,” she said. “They’re creating buzzworthy moments with partnerships and collaborations so that when they announce a product, we talk about it as if it’s so much more than just that.”
Eve also noted that even though it’s clearly Kardashian’s brand and she frequently appears in ads for the brand herself — including that notorious “nipple bra” ad — it exists “beyond Kim” and the “Kardashian family mafia network.” Seeing who will be tapped for a Skims ad next is part of the fun for Kardashian’s audience.
“Since they’re being so selective, it’s impressive to be chosen for their campaigns,” Eve said. “It’s aspirational to appear in a Skims ad, as if it’s a Vogue cover, or Sports Illustrated’s Rookie of the Year.”
Eve said it’s strategic that Skims ad stars feel so of-the-moment because they’re often linked to limited product releases, also known as “drops.”
“It’s very much tied to urgency — you have limited time to buy these limited items tied to a certain milestone, like [Cooper’s] wedding ad and [Mahomes’] holiday loungewear,” she explained.
She also predicted that we’d see Sofia Richie in a Skims maternity ad soon.
As a result, Skims feels like it has a life beyond Kardashian — or at least that it’s a product of her culturally savvy persona rather than just a vehicle to further her image.
“If you go to the Skims Instagram right now, you have to scroll for a while to see any photos of Kim,” Eve explained. “Look at Rhode, Hailey [Bieber] is all over that. Rare Beauty’s feed has so much Selena [Gomez]. Skims is being built way bigger than Kim.”
