When Sport Meets Shapewear: The Business of NikeSKIMS
- warwickluxretail
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Performance meets power. NikeSKIMS fuses the precision of Nike with the sensual minimalism of SKIMS, redefining activewear as both cultural statement and corporate strategy. It’s not a collab — it’s fashion’s boldest business experiment yet.
By Ridhi Sofat
October 2025
When Nike and Kim Kardashian announced NikeSKIMS, the internet did what it always does — it divided. Some called it genius. Others called it cynical. But Wall Street made its verdict clear: Nike’s stock jumped more than 6% overnight. In one headline-grabbing move, the world’s biggest sportswear company and one of the world’s most powerful celebrity brands had rewritten the playbook for how fashion, sport, and culture collide.
This wasn’t a capsule collection or a celebrity endorsement. NikeSKIMS is a new global brand, built to fuse Nike’s athletic innovation with SKIMS’ cultural fluency — and to solve a very real business problem for both.
The Business of Reinvention
For Nike, the timing couldn’t be more strategic. After a 9% dip in overall brand revenue and a 6% decline in its women’s division last fiscal year, the Swoosh needed a reset. NikeSKIMS is its most aggressive move yet to reclaim dominance in women’s activewear — a category where Lululemon, Alo Yoga, and Vuori have steadily eroded Nike’s market share.
For SKIMS, the upside is equally transformative. Founded in 2019 and already valued above $4 billion, SKIMS has expanded far beyond its shapewear roots into fashion and lifestyle categories. What Nike brings is performance credibility - the kind that can’t be built overnight. Its global factories, advanced fabric innovation, and retail reach give SKIMS instant access to scale and the sporting authority only a brand like Nike can offer.
As SKIMS CEO Jens Grede put it: “NikeSKIMS is more than a collaboration – it’s a new brand redefining activewear.”
This isn’t just a marketing play - it’s an experiment in how global brands are built at the intersection of culture, commerce and scale.
The Structure: Collaboration or Corporate Offspring?
The legal and financial structure of NikeSKIMS blurs traditional lines. Industry insiders describe it as a long-term licensing deal, not a short-term co-branding exercise. That means Nike retains ownership of key intellectual property — including trademarks, design patents, and creative assets like the “Bodies at Work” campaign — while SKIMS receives lucrative royalty terms and profit participation.
As Kenneth Anand, former General Counsel at Yeezy, explained: “NikeSKIMS is a Nike-controlled venture with all the bells and whistles — a licensing deal designed for scale, not hype.”
That makes it closer in structure to Yeezy x Adidas or Jordan Brand, not to Nike’s typical fashion collaborations with Jacquemus or Dior. Operationally, it’s being treated as a standalone division within Nike, complete with its own leadership:
Jordan Mills, a 14-year Nike veteran, heads operations.
Jaclyn Safley, former VP of Nike Training, serves as VP/GM of NikeSKIMS.
Their teams span product design, digital marketing, and retail strategy — supported by Nike’s performance R&D and SKIMS’ creative and cultural direction led by Kim Kardashian and Tracy Romulus.
The Product
After delays due to product issues, NikeSKIMS launched on September 26, debuting with 58 pieces across three core collections and four seasonal drops. Priced between $38 and $128, the range merges SKIMS’ sculptural minimalism with Nike’s technical precision — engineered for “studio, street, and everything in between.”
The “Bodies at Work” campaign starred Serena Williams, Sha’Carri Richardson, Chloe Kim, and 50 other female athletes, alongside Kardashian herself. It’s a statement of intent: performance wear designed 'for women, by women', with the same emotional storytelling Nike once reserved for its male icons.
The aesthetic — clean, neutral, body-conscious — mirrors SKIMS’ signature palette while expanding Nike’s visual language beyond bold branding and bright tones. This visual restraint is intentional. NikeSKIMS is selling not just clothing, but a new system of dress — one that merges the sculptural with the functional, the sensual with the athletic.
The Legal Architecture: Who Owns What?
The most fascinating dimension of NikeSKIMS lies in its legal scaffolding. If the partnership follows standard licensing terms, Nike will own all IP generated under the NikeSKIMS name:
New trademarks and logos will be filed by Nike.
Product design patents will belong to Nike.
Creative assets (films, campaigns, visual marks) will fall under Nike’s copyright.
In practical terms, that means if the partnership ends, Nike can continue selling the designs — stripped of SKIMS branding. SKIMS, however, benefits from a significant revenue share and the global exposure of Nike’s distribution machine.
From a risk standpoint, this setup gives Nike control and longevity while offering SKIMS flexibility and short-term upside — a rare equilibrium in brand partnerships.
The Cultural Play: Jordan, but Make It Feminine
The parallels with Jordan Brand are deliberate. Like Michael Jordan before her, Kim Kardashian is not merely endorsing a product; she’s founding a sub-brand. SKIMS co-founder Jens Grede even likened Kardashian to Jordan — a statement that would have been unthinkable five years ago.
The ambition here is to build a brand that can live beyond its founders — a cultural franchise that grows independently of either company’s core lines. Insiders describe NikeSKIMS as “the Jordan Brand for women,” engineered to anchor Nike’s women’s business for the next decade.
And if Nike can replicate even a fraction of Jordan’s success — which generated $6.6 billion in revenue in 2023 — NikeSKIMS could become the company’s most lucrative brand extension in a generation.
The Market Response: Fashion’s Most Watched Launch
The commercial data backs up the hype. The launch triggered a wave of press coverage, hundreds of millions of social impressions, and — crucially — a measurable investor response. Nike’s share price surged 6% after the initial announcement, signaling that investors view the deal as a credible growth catalyst, not a gimmick.
Meanwhile, analysts at GlobalData have noted that Lululemon’s U.S. sales dipped 4% this year, even as total activewear sales rose — suggesting that consumers are hungry for alternatives that blend athletic legitimacy with fashion credibility. NikeSKIMS is perfectly positioned to fill that gap.
The Bigger Picture: The Future of Hybrid Branding
NikeSKIMS is not just a brand — it’s a template. Its success could redefine how global companies build new ventures: not through seasonal collaborations, but through permanent hybrid entities combining infrastructure and influence.
It represents a shift from celebrity marketing to celebrity co-creation, where brand equity and intellectual property are co-engineered from day one. For Nike, this is a new model of growth. For SKIMS, it’s proof that cultural capital can be converted into corporate legitimacy.
And for the rest of the market, it’s a warning shot: the next wave of power brands won’t be built in silos. They’ll be built at the intersection of sport, celebrity, and law.
The Bottom Line
NikeSKIMS isn’t just selling activewear; it’s selling a new model for how brands are built. By merging performance, prestige, and legal precision, it turns collaboration into infrastructure. If it works, NikeSKIMS won’t just reshape women’s activewear — it will redefine how cultural influence is transformed into commercial power.
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