Skims: How Kim Kardashian’s Shapewear Became the World’s Most Powerful Undergarment

Skims: How Shapewear Became the New Soft Power

The planet has plenty of pressing garments—diplomatic cables, ballistic vests, papal vestments—but none travel as far, as fast, or as lucratively as the $4 billion waist-whittling spandex empire known simply as Skims. What began in 2019 as Kim Kardashian West’s side hustle has quietly metastasized into a geopolitical undergarment, stretching from Seoul’s duty-free boutiques to Riyadh’s air-conditioned malls, all while promising to “sculpt” humanity into one smooth, frictionless bloc. If NATO had a lingerie line, it would probably look like this: inclusive sizing, muted earth tones, and a Terms of Service longer than most ceasefire agreements.

Consider the optics. While the U.S. State Department still struggles to export democracy, Skims exports the illusion of an 18-inch waist to 160 countries—no elections required. Its latest pop-up in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates opened the same week COP28 delegates argued over carbon thresholds; inside, shoppers debated whether “sandstone” or “clay” better matched their soulless desert tans. Both conversations were about containment, just different zones: atmospheric CO₂ versus abdominal overflow. One is theoretically reversible.

The brand’s supply chain tells the fuller story. Cotton spun in Gujarat, synthetic polymers in Zhejiang, packaging printed in Łódź, then flown by Qatar Airways cargo to a fulfillment center outside Cincinnati—because nothing says “body positivity” quite like 8,000 nautical miles of jet fuel. Customs officials worldwide now recognize Skims’ minimalist packaging the way Cold War border guards once spotted fake passports: a matte beige poly-mailer that whispers, “I contain multitudes, but mostly silicone.”

In South Korea, where actual waistlines have remained stubbornly human, Skims has become a soft-power flex among Gen Z. Influencers livestream “try-on hauls” from Gangnam studios, cooing over the same nude unitard like it’s a peace treaty for their internalized dysmorphia. Meanwhile, the government’s latest birth-rate incentives—cash, subsidized rent, state-sponsored date nights—fail to outshine the promise of looking like an AI-generated version of yourself. National survival vs. optical hourglass: place your bets.

Across the Atlantic, the European Commission’s antitrust division recently opened a quiet probe into Skims’ algorithmic pricing. The allegation: the app charges Italian customers 12% more for the same “Fits Everybody” slip that costs less in Lithuania, a margin that Brussels humorlessly calls “geoblocking.” Skims calls it “localized brand experience.” Everyone else calls it the Eurozone in microfiber form—some nations subsidize the curves of others.

But nowhere is the brand’s imperial reach more poetic than in the United Kingdom, where post-Brexit customs chaos has turned every parcel into a referendum on British identity. A Midlands warehouse currently holds 30,000 Skims items hostage over a misplaced form CN22. Staff have begun referring to the impounded pallets as the “Northern Ireland Protocol in Lycra.” Meanwhile, Liz Truss’s premiership lasted 45 days; a pair of Skims “Soft Lounge” leggings lasts approximately 90 washes, or one full U.K. economic cycle.

Global implications? In an era when supply chains snap like cheap elastic, Skims has achieved the holy trinity of modern influence: omnipresence, opacity, and plausible deniability. It sells the fantasy that bodies—and by extension societies—can be edited in post-production. All you need is Wi-Fi, a credit limit, and a tolerance for modal-blend claustrophobia. If that sounds dystopian, remember we already voted with our wallets. The International Monetary Fund may warn of recession, but Skims’ Q3 earnings call boasted “resilient consumer demand in an inflationary environment,” which is investor-speak for “human insecurity remains bullish.”

So here we are, citizens of the world, tightening our collective waistband while the planet itself overheats. Somewhere a shipping container labeled “SKIMS – MEDIUM – COCOA” floats past the Maldives, indifferent to rising seas. Inside are 6,000 units of engineered compression, each one a tiny diplomatic pouch carrying the same message: We are all smooth underneath, and increasingly desperate to prove it.