As I’m sure many of you are aware, Kim Kardashian launched her shape and loungewear brand ‘SKIMS’ in 2019. Naturally, as with anything Kardashian-Jenner related, SKIMS was fast-tracked to astronomical levels of popularity. This was aided by the SKIMS philosophy of being an innovative brand providing “solutions for every body”, in the form of underwear, shapewear, loungewear, and now even swimwear. SKIMS was true in the way of providing a more inclusive sizing with items ranging from XXS to 4XL, however, their most recent campaign, “Icons in ‘Fits Everybody’”, has caused a lot of doubt regarding their size-inclusivity.
The “Fits Everybody” Collection excited people globally, as it sounded like it would be the peak size and shape inclusive collection to date. However, SKIMS threw this notion out the window in using the ‘Icons’ campaign as the face of this collection. The ‘Icons’ campaign consists of four of the most well-known supermodels ever: Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Candace Swanepoel and Alessandra Ambrosio. This is an interesting choice in relation to an inclusive collection, as these are people with figures that are globally accepted and praised for being smaller and more “stereotypically” beautiful. These are not bodies that remotely represent “everybody”, which defeats the point of this collection. People have taken to social media to complain and point out just how strange this move is, many rightfully arguing that they don’t feel represented in the campaign, or that four supermodels were a wrong move to promote inclusivity. It appears as though Kim Kardashian, along with SKIMS, was far more concerned with how “iconic” they could make this campaign–which is further emphasized by Kim joining the photoshoot, captioning her Instagram post with “…because it was too iconic”-rather than actually promoting inclusivity.
This is a problem that ranges far wider than SKIMS, but SKIMS works as a great basis to go off of. This use of supermodels is largely problematic because it perpetuates the idea that bigger and more-representative bodies are not “made for” or supported by mainstream media. As “inclusive” as industries are trying to become, or claiming to be, they lack portraying this inclusivity where it matters most: social media. Yes, on the website SKIMS does have a variety of sized models that don’t necessarily fit the historically “typical” model size, but even this is vastly limited. The models used on the website are still mostly hourglass shaped, meaning they have wide hips, big thighs and a small waist, which is essentially the most sought-after body shape in today’s (mostly Western or Western-influenced) societies. Whilst SKIMS does have sizes of models that are inclusive, this is not without limitations. This again begs the question: how inclusive are brands like SKIMS? More importantly though, it shows that bigger bodies and bodies that aren’t the “ideal” figure are only minimally accepted and used in media, branding, and promoting. Bigger bodies are ever so rarely displayed on the billboards and promotions in brands like SKIMS, which is disappointing and problematic because it perpetuates that a smaller sized-body is the norm and the body to strive towards.
First off, it’s disappointing in the sense that it lessens the amount of representation for people with various body types. If all a person is exposed to is a body that doesn’t look like theirs, they will find it very hard to accept and love their own body. Further, it actually ends up casting doubt on the brand, as someone is less likely to buy from the brand if they haven’t seen themselves (through a model with a similar body shape or size) in the advertising of the brand. I have said this many times before, but I will say it again: Representation matters. Brands are severely underestimating the influence of seeing representative sizes and shapes on billboards and advertising.
Secondly, it becomes problematic because it casts an “un-wanting” and “undesirable” light on bigger bodies, or even just bodies that aren’t “typical model” bodies. It furthers the idea that bigger bodies are still not meant to be displayed as broadly, and that they aren’t as attractive as stereotypical “model” bodies. This again links back to representation. Further, it makes it more challenging to normalize and destigmatize bigger bodies. If bigger bodies were displayed as widely as “ideal” bodies are, there would be far less judgement of them, and far less struggle with body-image because of being bigger.
The final nail in the coffin for SKIMS though, is the alleged photoshopping of Tyra Banks. Many people have claimed, with side-by-side images, that Tyra’s body has been edited and photoshopped to replicate a figure similar to that of Kim Kardashian’s–a smaller waist and wider hips. Of course, this is deeply ironic as Tyra is meant to be one of the faces of a collection that “Fits Everybody”, and yet even Tyra’s body, a former supermodel body, is altered to fit “the norm” body type. This does not perpetuate inclusivity, but instead casts doubt on Kim Kardashian and SKIMS.
Ultimately, SKIMS had a grand opportunity to really change the game by creating a campaign with diversity, but instead chose an “iconic” collaboration instead. The irony in this is that the campaign would have been far more iconic had it been one filled with diversity of shapes and sizes, merely based off of how represented people would have felt by a diverse campaign. The take-away from this, is that representation is so important, and is valued far more than any sort of “iconic” collaboration, even that of four former Victoria’s Secret Models. Unfortunately, SKIMS is a brand that claims inclusivity, and readily accepts the attention that gives them, but they don’t deliver on displaying this inclusivity.