Earlier than hitting the stage at this yr’s Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present, R&B singer Usher graced the duvet of Vogue’s 2024 Winter Digital difficulty. 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 gaggle of school-aged soccer gamers on the duvet, he’s joined by supermodel Carolyn Murphy. Critics on X and TikTok rapidly 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 solely 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 a couple of 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 sporting briefs. It was acquired as a extra rewarding press cease than the Vogue cowl by a lot of his followers.
It’s secure 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. However it’s arduous to not discover that Skims’ star-studded adverts generate the type of constructive buzz that Vogue and different legacy journal covers have ceaselessly failed to realize — and which can be typically met with controversy concerning poor pictures, underwhelming styling, and a lack of variety.
In the meantime, Skims shoots have seen a extra persistently constructive reception. Earlier than Usher’s marketing campaign, the e-commerce model set social media ablaze with its 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.
Extra lately, Skims recruited Name Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper for a bridal lingerie marketing campaign, capitalizing on her huge listenership. And pop lady du jour Sabrina Carpenter is the model’s newest spokesperson, donning the new lace lingerie assortment in a ‘90s-inspired shoot.
The adverts have additionally arrived at a time when superstar endorsements and influencer sponcon have grow to be an integral a part of the web 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 present valued at $4 billion) has managed to offer 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 shed a few of the not-so-marketable associations with basis clothes. For a lot 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 “meant” for older girls was an early cosign by Oprah Winfrey.
Because the body-positivity motion has made strides over the previous twenty years — infiltrating advertising and marketing for almost the whole lot, from relationship apps to cleaning soap — the usual of bodily perfection that made using 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 comfy admitting they owned however sporting as outerwear as nicely. It definitely 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 fad is outwardly so large 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 totally different from shapewear founder Sara Blakely’s story. Blakely minimize the legs off her control-top pantyhose to take care of a cinched look beneath her pants, creating what would basically be the groundbreaking product Spanx. Kardashian equally claims she was pressured to chop her shapewear to enhance her cutout and high-slit attire. A extra necessary promoting level for the corporate was that Kardashian additionally stated she couldn’t discover shapewear to match her olive-y tan pores and skin tone, main her to go as far as to dye her undergarments with tea and occasional.
“For me, I used to be simply searching 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 shade 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 message of variety, with the slogan “options for each physique.” Its 36-piece debut assortment provided bras, underwear, shorts, and varied bodysuits in 9 shades from sand to onyx. Considerably, the model provided an intensive dimension vary, XXS to 5X, and used fashions representing that spectrum. In its first couple of minutes after launching, the model made $2 million.
After all, 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 consequence of public controversies, reducing gross sales, inside points, and a basic incapacity to maintain up with the instances.
Issues in the end took a flip for the more severe in 2018, when Edward Razek, former chief advertising and marketing officer of L Manufacturers (which owns Victoria’s Secret), defended excluding plus-size and transgender fashions from the yearly televised Victoria’s Secret Vogue Present. Since then, the corporate has tried extra inclusive messaging, expanded its dimension vary, and retained high-profile spokesmodels. Nonetheless, gross sales, notably its in-store efficiency, have continued to plunge.
Celeb Skims adverts have crammed a void in popular culture.
Apart from 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 staff, the NBA, and the WNBA.
Campaigns that includes a few of the web’s most beloved celebrities have made Skims a premier platform for viral picture shoots. You can liken the web response when a high-profile actor, athlete, or musician seems in a Skims advert to older generations seeing their popular 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 equivalent to Mark Wahlberg and Brooke Shields, generated comparable pleasure, if additionally controversy. Within the social media period, when everybody is continually 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 initiatives editor and senior reporter for Advert Age, notes that timeliness is one facet that works in Skims’ favor. She emphasizes that being a DTC model helps Skims roll out these superstar adverts extra rapidly.
“As a direct-to-consumer model, they’re capable of be very nimble with their advertising and marketing,” she stated. “[Kim Kardashian] handles loads of the inventive and may end up that stuff on a dime, particularly for a digital marketing campaign. It’s more durable to be as versatile and as quick with advertising and marketing 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: spotlighting numerous expertise in the best means on the proper time and creating the kind of impactful photos that followers need. Whereas Vogue has tried to function extra individuals of shade in and on the duvet of their magazines — albeit at a gradual 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 popularity they developed previously or produce branding work that resonates with customers.
A few of Skims’ illustrious spokesmodels embody SZA, Cardi B, the Mahomes household, Ice Spice, PinkPantheress, Kate Moss, Lana Del Rey, Snoop Dogg, Brooke Shields, and Rosalía. One of the vital eye-catching picture shoots was appropriately named “Icons” and featured vogue and lingerie fashions equivalent to Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Candice Swanepoel, and Alessandra Ambrosio, all earlier Victoria’s Secret Angels. Apparently sufficient, Skims consumers known as out Victoria’s Secret for allegedly copying the marketing campaign with its “Icons Assortment,” which equally solid ’90s supermodels.
To date, 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 damaging response. The corporate was briefly in sizzling 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 satirically a feat for Kardashian, whose title is virtually synonymous with backlash.
The shoots are all tastefully horny and, in some instances — like with the Mahomeses — family-friendly. Fairly than leaning right into a hypersexualized, male-gaze aesthetic like Victoria’s Secret shoots, they depend on magnificence, model synergy, and the cultural local weather and don’t try to really shock or titillate — nicely, 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 and marketing at influencer advertising and marketing firm the Shelf, notes that older millennial and Gen X customers have a extra conventional, “old-school” concept of superstar that Skims’ adverts typically come across.
“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 sensible 2020 marketing campaign, Kardashian unveiled Skims’ velour loungewear assortment with the assistance of her finest pal, Paris Hilton. The girly, tabloid-style picture shoot reveals the pair exiting a grocery retailer and strolling via 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 Zers have been presumably turning into accustomed to.
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, you then’ve received 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’t be overstated that Skims is a billion-dollar enterprise due to extraordinarily well-known founder Kim Kardashian, who’s always posting Skims merchandise on Instagram to her 364 million followers. However the firm has additionally been a word-of-mouth success, with many reluctantly praising the standard of its merchandise. After all, there have additionally been detractors, concerning its alleged unsustainability.
“It does should do with the intensive attain of Kim Kardashian,” Pasquarelli stated. “She simply instructions a celeb that loads of others don’t. ”
It’s honest to recommend that Skims’ adverts additionally thrive due to the panorama of superstar branding and sponcon that she helped foster. After all, the Skims founder isn’t completely accountable for influencer advertising and marketing as an idea. Celeb ads within the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s actually set the stage for a lot of what the scene seems to be like in the present day, with Michael Jordan’s myriad model offers and Pepsi and Coca-Cola commercials starring large pop stars.
Nonetheless, in 2024, there’s a noticeable degree of pleasure on social media when a celeb collabs with a well-liked model and the partnership feels excellent. Ben Affleck and his long-running, closely memed relationship with Dunkin’ is a first-rate instance. Satirically, his trilogy of Dunkin’ adverts, the third installment of which aired at this yr’s Tremendous Bowl, appears like the most important cinematic occasion he’s partaken in lately.
“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 individuals discover it actually endearing and amusing when a celeb 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 all the time projected himself however definitely amped up in recent times because the singer went viral for serenading his largely feminine friends at his Las Vegas residency. The identical could be stated about Lana Del Rey, who was a considerably stunning spokesmodel. Del Rey is extra of a personal determine and never notably recognized for shilling something apart from her albums and poetry books. However it 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 components for promoting is admittedly easy; it’ll all the time have the power to impress so long as different legacy manufacturers are getting it fallacious. Time will inform whether or not it could 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.
