Earlier than hitting the stage at this yr’s Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present, R&B singer Usher graced the quilt of Vogue’s 2024 Winter Digital subject. It wasn’t completely apparent, although, that he was meant to be the publication’s visitor of honor.
The styling is tasteful sufficient, with Usher wearing a cream-colored, autumnal outfit like a fashion-forward sports activities dad. Nonetheless, not solely is he upstaged by a bunch of school-aged soccer gamers on the quilt, he’s joined by supermodel Carolyn Murphy. Critics on X and TikTok shortly expressed their frustration over the route of the shoot, which appeared intent on minimizing Usher’s presence. Together with Lebron James and Kanye West, he’s considered one of lower than a handful of Black males to be featured on US Vogue covers. (Possibly not so coincidentally, the three talked about share their cowl shoots with white girls.)
Then just a few weeks later got here a steamy underwear advert for Skims, Kim Kardashian’s shapewear and loungewear model. Social media customers praised Usher and Skims for the well timed collaboration. The straightforward shoot, featured the “U Remind Me” singer, decked out in chains, holding a peach, and flaunting his six-pack abs whereas carrying briefs. It was acquired as a extra rewarding press cease than the Vogue cowl by a lot of his followers.
It’s protected to say that there’s no actual challenger to the 131-year-old establishment that’s Vogue. Using elite photographers and A-list designers — to not point out editor-in-chief Anna Wintour’s unwavering dominance within the vogue trade — the journal has remained one of many final curators of superstar picture. But it surely’s laborious to not discover that Skims’ star-studded adverts generate the form of optimistic buzz that Vogue and different legacy journal covers have often failed to attain — and which are usually met with controversy relating to poor pictures, underwhelming styling, and a lack of range.
In the meantime, Skims shoots have seen a extra persistently optimistic reception. Earlier than Usher’s marketing campaign, the e-commerce model set social media ablaze with their annual Valentine’s Day marketing campaign starring singer Lana Del Rey. And the vacation shoot the yr earlier than featured Beatrice Grannò and Simona Tabasco, two Italian actresses from the hit HBO collection The White Lotus.
They’ve additionally arrived at a time when superstar endorsements and influencer sponcon have turn into an integral a part of the net expertise. It’s perhaps not so stunning that the mastermind behind all of that is Kim Kardashian, a contemporary pinup with a penchant for opening our wallets and making issues go viral.
Skims put a “cool” stamp on shapewear.
Since launching Skims in 2019, Kardashian’s juggernaut of a enterprise, at the moment valued at $4 billion, has managed to provide customers a brand new outlook on body-sculpting innerwear.
Main as much as its debut, Kardashian and her influencer sisters have been controversially shilling waist trainers on social media. Presumably, the media moguls’ seal of approval helped shred a number of the not-so-marketable associations with basis clothes. For many of the 2000s and 2010s, shapewear was largely a punchline, even with its not-so-secret widespread use all through Hollywood and the style trade. Spanx have been for imperfect girls making an attempt to hide their love handles on a date. The phrase “girdle” nonetheless brings to thoughts an older demographic of ladies. Possibly essentially the most telling signal that Spanx and different body-cincher merchandise have been geared toward an older technology of ladies was an early cosign by Oprah Winfrey.
Because the body-positivity motion has made strides over the previous 20 years — infiltrating advertising for almost every thing, from relationship apps to cleaning soap — the usual of bodily perfection that made the usage of body-cinching merchandise embarrassing has began to dwindle. By the point Skims launched its first set of stock, it appeared like shapewear was one thing younger girls weren’t solely snug admitting they owned however sporting as outerwear as effectively. It actually helped that fashionable labels like Mugler, Charlotte Knowles, and Rui Zhou (and their fast-fashion dupes) have repopularized slimming, paneled bodysuits and underwear-inspired garments. The shapewear craze is outwardly so enormous that forecasters predict a market share of $3.8 billion within the subsequent seven years.
The impetus for Skims Solutionwear — initially controversially known as “Kimono” — isn’t that completely different from shapewear founder Sara Blakely’s story. Blakely lower the legs of her control-top pantyhose to keep up a cinched look underneath her pants, creating what would basically be the groundbreaking product Spanx. Kardashian equally claims she was pressured to chop her shapewear to enrich her cutout and high-slit attire. A extra vital promoting level for the corporate, Kardashian additionally stated she couldn’t discover shapewear to match her olive-y tan pores and skin tone, going as far as to dye her shapewear with tea and occasional.
“For me, I used to be simply on the lookout for an answer to the truth that I like to put on shapewear,” Kardashian stated on the Time 100 summit final yr. “There wasn’t a colour tone that match my pores and skin tone, not to mention most of my mates.”
A number of years prior, Rihanna’s make-up model Fenty Magnificence proved that inclusivity — particularly when paired with A-list superstar branding — sells. Likewise, Skims relied closely on the identical message of range, with the slogan “options for each physique.” Its 36-piece debut assortment supplied bras, underwear, shorts, and numerous bodysuits in 9 shades from sand to onyx. Considerably, the model supplied an intensive measurement vary, XXS to 5X, and used fashions representing that spectrum. In its first couple of minutes of launching, the model made $2 million.
In fact, branding shapewear designed to make the physique look slimmer as “inclusive” is a bit ironic if not completely regressive. Nonetheless, it’s clear that millennial and Gen-Z girls felt extra embraced by Skims and different direct-to-consumer corporations, like ThirdLove and Savage X Fenty, than legacy model Victoria’s Secret by the late 2010s. Since about 2015, the lingerie retailer has seen a cultural and monetary decline as a result of public controversies, reducing gross sales, inner points, and a common incapacity to maintain up with the occasions.
Issues finally took a flip for the more severe in 2018 when former Chief Advertising and marketing Officer of L Manufacturers (which owns Victoria’s Secret) Edward Razek defended excluding plus-size and transgender fashions from the yearly televised Victoria’s Secret Trend Present. Since then, the corporate has tried extra inclusive messaging, expanded its measurement vary, and retained high-profile spokesmodels. Nonetheless, gross sales, notably its in-store efficiency, have continued to plunge.
Movie star Skims adverts have crammed a void in popular culture.
Except for the “inclusivity” angle, Skims has remained a dominant drive within the vogue world due to its internet-breaking collaborations. In a brief period of time, the model has linked up with high-fashion label Fendi for a capsule assortment and sports activities organizations just like the US Olympic group, the NBA, and the WNBA.
Their campaigns that includes a number of the web’s most beloved celebrities have made Skims a premiere platform for viral picture shoots. You may liken the net response to a high-profile actor, athlete, or musician showing in a Skims advert to older generations seeing their pop-culture idols in a government-sponsored “Acquired Milk?” advert or perhaps a beloved athlete on a Wheaties cereal field. Commercials for Calvin Klein within the ’80s and ’90s, starring then-up-and-comers corresponding to Mark Wahlberg and Brooke Shields, generated related pleasure if not controversy. Within the social media period, when everybody is consistently self-promoting, superstar picture shoots have misplaced a little bit of their novelty. Nonetheless, Skims has managed to harness social media and the zeitgeist to ship capital-M moments.
Adrianne Pasquarelli, particular tasks editor and senior reporter for Advert Age, notes that timeliness is one side that works in Skims’ favor. She emphasizes that being a DTC model helps Skims roll out these superstar adverts in a faster vogue.
“As a direct-to-consumer model, they’re capable of be very nimble with their advertising,” she stated. “[Kim] handles lots of the artistic and might end up that stuff on a dime, particularly for a digital marketing campaign. It’s tougher to be as versatile and as quick with advertising for heritage corporations with a bunch of brick-and-mortar shops and simply a long time of retailing.”
It looks like Skims is doing one thing that legacy manufacturers have struggled to ship within the age of the web: highlight numerous expertise in the precise approach on the proper time and create the form of impactful photos that followers need. Whereas Vogue has tried to function extra folks of colour in and on the quilt of their magazines — albeit at a sluggish tempo — and Victoria’s Secret now caters to a bigger vary of our bodies, these manufacturers haven’t been capable of completely shed the below-par repute they’ve developed up to now or produce branding work that resonates with customers.
A few of Skims’ illustrious spokesmodels embrace SZA, Cardi B, the Mahomes household, Ice Spice, PinkPantheress, Kate Moss, Lana Del Rey, Snoop Dogg, Brooke Shields, and Rosalía. One in all their most eye-catching picture shoots was appropriately named “Icons” and featured vogue and lingerie fashions corresponding to Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Candice Swanepoel, and Alessandra Ambrosio, all of them earlier Victoria’s Secret angels. Curiously sufficient, Skims consumers known as out Victoria’s Secret for allegedly copying the marketing campaign with their “Icons Assortment,” which equally solid ’90s supermodels.
Thus far, in contrast to Calvin Klein’s adverts of yore, there’s hardly any controversy concerned. For essentially the most half, Skims’ picture shoots have but to stir an overwhelmingly destructive response. The corporate was briefly in scorching water for that includes San Francisco 49ers participant Nick Bosa in a Skims Males advert final yr after some problematic tweets resurfaced. Nonetheless, a short-lived, largely forgettable scandal is paradoxically a feat for Kardashian, whose identify is virtually synonymous with backlash.
The shoots are all tastefully horny and, in some circumstances — like with the Mahomeses — family-friendly. Somewhat than leaning right into a hypersexualized, male gaze like Victoria’s Secret shoots, they depend on magnificence, model synergy, and the cultural local weather fairly than any makes an attempt to really shock or titillate — effectively, besides perhaps within the case of a few of their males’s adverts.
Lots of Skims’ splashier superstar adverts have additionally featured and focused older adults. Sorilbran Stone, head of content material advertising at influencer advertising firm The Shelf, notes that older millennial and Gen X customers have a extra conventional, “old-school” thought of superstar that Skims’ adverts usually stumble on.
“I believe Skims focuses on content material for younger customers and campaigns for older customers, which makes it accessible for everybody,” she stated.
For instance, in a single good 2020 marketing campaign, Kardashian unveiled Skims’ velour loungewear assortment with the assistance of her greatest good friend Paris Hilton. The girly, tabloid-style picture shoot exhibits the pair exiting a grocery retailer and strolling by a car parking zone, harkening again to their early socialite days being adopted by paparazzi. The informal shoot wasn’t simply leaning into Y2K aesthetic developments. It was additionally capitalizing on Hilton’s reemergence as a foregone cultural determine that millennials have been starting to understand once more and Gen Z-ers have been presumably turning into conversant in.
Stone says Skims has managed to mirror the pursuits of a variety of customers with its numerous casting.
“For those who don’t take heed to hip hop, then you definitely’ve bought Kim Cattrall,” Stone stated. “For those who don’t know who SZA is or no matter — there’s somebody standing within the hole who can loop you into that world.”
We’re dwelling in peak superstar endorsement tradition
It may well’t be overstated that Skims is a billion-dollar enterprise due to the extraordinarily well-known founder Kim Kardashian, who’s continuously posting Skims merchandise on Instagram to her 364 million followers. The corporate has additionally been a word-of-mouth success with many reluctantly praising the standard of its merchandise. In fact, there have additionally been detractors, relating to its alleged unsustainability.
“It does must do with the intensive attain of Kim Kardashian,” Pasquarelli stated. “She simply instructions a star that lots of others don’t. ”
It’s truthful to counsel that Skims’ adverts additionally thrive due to the panorama of superstar branding and sponcon that she helped foster. In fact, the Skims founder isn’t completely chargeable for influencer advertising as an idea. Movie star ads within the Eighties and ’90s actually set the stage for a lot of what the scene seems like at this time, with Michael Jordan’s myriad model offers and Pepsi and Coca-Cola commercials starring enormous pop stars.
Nonetheless, in 2024, there’s a noticeable degree of pleasure on social media when a star collabs with a preferred model, and the partnership feels excellent. Ben Affleck and his long-running, closely memed relationship with Dunkin’ is a main instance. Satirically, his trilogy of Dunkin’ adverts, the third one airing at this yr’s Tremendous Bowl, appears like the largest cinematic occasion he’s partaken in not too long ago.
“I believe the attraction of Ben Affleck for Dunkin’ is due to how a lot it performs into meme tradition,” stated Vulture author Rebecca Alter, who writes about superstar endorsements. “We’ve all seen photos of Affleck wanting exhausted fetching his Dunkies, and I believe folks discover it actually endearing and amusing when a star performs into the meme picture of themselves, as a result of it’s a picture that followers helped create.”
Usher’s Skims marketing campaign leaned into the horny picture he’s at all times projected himself however actually amped up in recent times because the singer went viral for serenading his largely girls visitors at his Las Vegas residency. The identical will be stated about Lana Del Rey, who was considerably of a stunning spokesmodel. Del Rey is extra of a non-public determine and never notably identified for shilling something apart from her albums and poetry books. But it surely appeared like her followers appreciated the route of the shoot, a callback to the Nineteen Sixties pinup look she’s embraced all through her profession. The picture shoot even earned Skims a whopping $13.7 million in media publicity.
Finally, Skims’ success formulation for promoting is admittedly easy; it’ll at all times have the power to impress so long as different legacy manufacturers are getting it flawed. Time will inform whether or not Skims can adapt to ever-changing developments in vogue and physique picture. However for now, it’s confirmed to be extra agile and forward-thinking than your older sister’s lingerie store or the shiny editorials resting in a pile in your mom’s nightstand.
