Mixed Messaging: Kim Kardashian West’s Skims Makes False Promises Of Body Positivity

Graphic by Isabelle Hauf-Pisoni.

Skin-tight corsets, core control undergarments and full-body girdles. Clear some space in your living room and make space for a fainting couch, because according to cultural icon and business mogul Kim Kardashian West, Victorian mechanisms of bodily control are back in.

In an age where women can no longer rely on air-constricting garments and layers of petticoats to suck in and shape their figures, Kardashian’s newest venture Skims — an underwear, loungewear and shapewear brand — claims to provide “solutions for every body.” The company has rebranded these nineteenth-century fashions and features them in nine different shade options and sizes ranging from XXS to 5X, so now every woman can conform to the modern-day male gaze.

At first glance, the company appears to be tackling some of the fashion industry’s most salient issues. Kardashian herself said in an interview with Nordstrom that the inspiration for the brand “started with finding solutions for dressing issues as opposed to ‘fixing’ or changing a woman’s natural shape and figure,” emphasizing her desire for the products to “feel accessible for all women.”  

But what really is the difference between Skims’ “solutionwear” and other brands of shapewear? Despite the slight nuances in marketing and admirable efforts on Skims’ end to make their collections more inclusive than those of their competitors like Spanx and Commando, the essence of shapewear remains the same — to alter the wearer’s body in order to look more “socially acceptable,” a term that’s entirely subjective. 

To assess if Skims is effective in their mission, we have to consider what standards the company is challenging. Yes, the brand has created options for a range of body types and skin tones, which is more than some of their competitors can say. However, Skims is still contributing to a market that is inherently critical about women’s bodies.  

Skims tells women to love their bodies and embrace their natural shape, while paradoxically telling customers that shapewear will be the key to their self-confidence. By calling their products solution-oriented, Skims’ brand philosophy implies that women’s bodies are a problem to begin with. 

The shapewear collection even features a “waist trainer,” which is a kind of corset meant to help “you achieve your ideal silhouette,” according to the Skims website. The name of the product speaks for itself, but nothing about an undergarment designed to change the shape of your body in order to mimic a naturally unattainable figure screams body positivity. 

Image courtesy of skims.com.

The Skims brand is inextricably linked to Kardashian’s celebrity brand as the reality star herself is the face of the company. That makes her reputation, and times when it has been jeopardized, fair game when considering the contradictions in Skims’ branding strategy. Kardashian has faced several allegations of appropriating Black culture, including but not limited to wearing Fulani braids on the red carpet and attributing the style to another white woman. Known for the commodification of her body, Kardashian has also profited off of her universally recognized figure while Black women with similar shapes are excluded from a white-dominant definition of beauty.

Kardashian’s public persona has always emphasized her body and the world’s captivation with it. Take her perfume and body care company, KKW Fragrance, for example. She molded her own body and made it into a perfume bottle that sits on the shelves of thousands of customers, serving as a constant reminder of her perfectly sculpted figure.

Image courtesy of KKW fragrance.

In her recent Saturday Night Live debut appearance, Kardashian played into her public image and joked that she was excited to show everyone that she is “so much more than that reference photo my sisters show their plastic surgeons.”  

There is significant truth to Kardashian’s seemingly harmless jokes. Although she continues to deny having undergone any kind of plastic surgery, including a nose job and butt implants, Kardashian and the rest of her family still heavily emphasize body image and ways to “improve” their bodies, with methods ranging from makeup techniques to strict diets. This kind of reputation is hard to ignore when considering Skims’ messaging of body positivity.

Image courtesy of Rosalind O’Connor / NBCU / Getty.

Kardashian also continues to deny that she and her family promote unattainable beauty standards. When faced directly with the question on the Keeping Up with the Kardashians reunion special, she responded that the secret to her dream bod is simple: “We get up, we do the work, we work out.” 

If only it were that easy. What Kardashian conveniently forgets to include is all of the money it takes to hire world-class trainers and professionally trained chefs. Not to mention the retouching that goes on behind the scenes of so many of Kardashian’s photoshoots. Kardashian’s advice is not only out of touch but also counterproductive to her brand strategy. If all a woman needs to do is “work out” to achieve the ideal hourglass curves, why should she invest in Skims products?

Kardashian’s implications that hard work is the key to an ideal body evoke more ties to fat-phobia than body positivity. Moreover, given that fat-phobia is inherently tied to anti-Blackness, this message undermines much of the work that Skims has done to create products that suit a range of sizes and skin tones. For someone who has designed a brand that tells women to embrace their natural shape, Kardashian’s tone deaf statement on the malleability of bodies reveals her willingness to demonize non-traditionally white body types when it can be monetized. 

The way that Kardashian has openly embraced her curves has surely made hourglass bodies more “trendy” in today’s world of beauty standards. It’s clear, however, that being thin and “in shape” still dominates our narrow view of beauty, and Kardashian’s shapewear collection only emphasizes this standard further. 

Kardashian has failed to assume the responsibility that she assigned herself with Skims. She has masterfully, or perhaps deceitfully, created products that change women’s bodies and markets them as vehicles for self-love. Skims and Kardashian would benefit from being transparent about what their products truly represent rather than capitalizing on women’s insecurities and calling it body positivity. 

Shapewear in and of itself is contradictory to body positivity. Instead of telling women to model themselves after others to feel beautiful, let’s encourage them to love every inch of their bodies.