Biography | Kim Kardashian — The Nordstrom Launch That Put SKIMS into Stores

On 5 February 2020, Kim Kardashian appeared at Nordstrom’s New York City flagship as SKIMS entered a traditional retail chain for the first time.

SKIMS had launched online in September 2019. The Nordstrom partnership changed how customers could encounter the young company: its shapewear, underwear and accessories became available in physical stores as well as through a brand-controlled website.

Entertainment Tonight reported that Nordstrom was SKIMS’ first retail partner. Business Insider independently described the February rollout as the first time the products would be sold through a traditional retailer, beginning online and in twenty-five stores.

Kardashian marked the change at the Manhattan flagship on launch day. Contemporary coverage and the brand’s event notice place her at 225 West 57th Street, where customers could shop the collection in person.

That setting mattered more than a routine promotional appearance. Direct-to-consumer brands can build quickly online, but a department-store partnership asks the product to work within another company’s merchandising, inventory and service systems.

It also lets customers test material and fit before buying. For a shapewear company organized around size, tone and feel, physical access changed the transaction itself.

The launch did not prove that SKIMS would become durable, nor did it create the company. It marked the first bridge from the brand’s digital opening into established retail infrastructure.

Nordstrom’s later company material continued to identify February 2020 as the beginning of the partnership, confirming that the day became more than a temporary pop-up.

This memory pins the public flagship storefront, not an interior counter, staff-only area or Kardashian’s movements through the building.

The photograph was taken in July 2024, when the same storefront carried a Hello Kitty anniversary installation. It documents the address four years later and does not depict the SKIMS launch.

The difference between the 2019 website debut and the 2020 store launch is the point. One tested whether Kardashian’s audience would buy a new label directly; the other tested whether the label could travel through a national retailer.

At West 57th Street, SKIMS became something shoppers could meet outside Kardashian’s own channels, a practical step from personality-led launch toward an independent consumer brand.

Photo: Jim Henderson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons