Dive Brief:
- Ramping up a move into brick and mortar, Skims on Thursday opened its first permanent retail store in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., per a release sent to Retail Dive.
- The California-based athleisure brand, co-founded by chief creative officer Kim Kardashian in 2019, will open an additional four stores in 2024 and flagship locations in New York and Los Angeles at a future date, per the release.
- The 3,300-square-foot D.C. store is initially carrying the Skims women’s collection with plans to bring on men’s later this year, per the brand’s Instagram account. The store was designed in tandem with Willo Perron of Perron-Roettinger.
Dive Insight:
The additional Skims stores set to open this year include: a 3,721-square-foot store that will open in Aventura, Florida, on June 27; a 3,382-square-foot location in Austin, Texas, slated for July; a 6,909-square-foot Houston store in August, and a 3,500-square-foot unit in Atlanta coming in September, per the company.
“This is a monumental moment for Skims,” Jens Grede, CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “We’ve achieved phenomenal growth thus far and having an omnichannel retail approach supports our plans to scale the business across key markets in the U.S. We’ve been envisioning the customer journey in our own physical space for a long time, and we’re excited to unveil Georgetown for loyal and new consumers to experience our product in a physical environment.”
Skims has been experimenting with brick-and-mortar retail since opening a couple of pop-up shops in Los Angeles and New York City over the past year. It’s a strategy employed by other apparel retailers in recent years, including athleisure brand Halara in New York City and Revolve Group in Aspen, Colorado, this month; and Gen Z fast-fashion brand Cider in New York City last November.
“As this is Skims first permanent store, with more to come, we’ve been so meticulous with each and every detail to ensure that our customers are immersed into the Skims universe,” Kardashian said in a statement.
The company also added to its C-suite in 2023 by appointing Robert Norton to the position of chief commercial officer.
“Brick and mortar retail is an important part of our growth strategy,” Norton said in a statement. “We see our new stores as integral to building holistic and authentic relationships with customers loyal and new.”
Skims first entered the men’s apparel market last October. Shortly after that announcement, the brand became the official underwear partner of the NBA, WNBA and USA Basketball. In May, Skims launched a new marketing campaign centered around five of the WNBA’s top stars.
Over the course of five funding rounds since 2019, Skims has raised a total of $701 million, according to Crunchbase. Its most recent round in July 2023 brought in $270 million and set a valuation of the brand at $4 billion. At the time, Skims projected to reach net sales of $750 million in 2023.
