It may be nearing the end of 2024 but Kim Kardashian is still making waves, finishing the year off on a high note. Her SKIMSbrand opens their first flagship store in New York City, opening in an auspicious location on the city's coveted Fifth Avenue.
In response to her rapidly growing brand, the 6,570 square feet spans across four floors and used to be the home of the Versace brand for two decades, situated right next to the Cartier Fifth Avenue Mansion. The flagship store also features a showroom/VIP area, including an office space for its 175 employees. This also marks the brand's sixth and largest store yet following the company's milestone $4 billion USD valuation last year.
Speaking to WWD in an interview about their expansion, SKIMS co-founder Kim Kardashian and CEO Jens Grede discussed their growth and the success of the recent The North Face collaboration which sold out in five minutes. They also discussed the brand's evolution as an apparel brand, their 2025 plans and rumored IPO. On the NYC store, Kardashian said, "The store has this high gloss mixed with monochromatic colors and materials and different textures, and everything is embossed like our logos." As for the recent The North Face collab, Grede shared, "It's one of our highest waitlisted drops. What it really has shown is that Skims has a lot of opportunity for new categories in the future, and even more price elasticity. Customers really want Skims and not just exactly what we’re selling today."
When it comes to marketing strategy, Kardashian is all about the virality o the campaigns, "There is a whole marketing group chat that we have going on. We send ideas all day, all night, and that’s the fun part…having a feeling that we love an artist or maybe an athlete, and coming up with a really great campaign. I think the Internet culture always is wondering, ‘What’s the next campaign?’ ‘Who’s it going to be?’ ‘What have they thought of now?’ and it’s always surprising." As for their brick-and-mortar strategy, Grede said, "You know, 80 percent of purchases are done in physical stores, and we have a business where 80 percent of our purchases are done online. So clearly, we want to do the business the way the customers want to do business. We’re just in the very beginning of that journey...Next year, there’s a big focus on putting inventory in Europe and really servicing Europe and the Middle East, because we’re seeing such a large share of our traffic interest there."
Finally, addressing the rumored IPO, Grede affirms, "The only ones who have never spoken about our IPO is us. All I do is respond to people asking about it. We have never made a decision to go public. All I’ve ever said and maybe that was a mistake, was I said at some point we deserve to be a public company. And we have institutional investors, so of course, at some point we need to offer them optionality. But we have long-term investors. They’re incredibly supportive of our journey. And I think as people, both of us would say we are enjoying our time right now. We might make that position in the future, but that’s not what I’m thinking about."
SKIMS NYC Flagship
647 Fifth Avenue
Manhattan, New York
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