Details are now trickling out about the tie-up, which people familiar with the project say goes beyond a traditional fashion collaboration. Instead, they say NikeSkims will operate under Nike as a sub-brand, much like Nike SB, the company’s skateboarding business. That means the NikeSkims brand will have its own products, marketing and growth targets and will be run separately from Nike’s basketball, running and other sports divisions.
Nike’s biggest partnership is with basketball superstar Michael Jordan, whose brand has its own management team at Nike and has grown into a nearly $7 billion business.
Kardashian hinted at the standalone brand structure when she posted a NikeSkims employee badge that indicated she was employee number one. Since then, the project’s staff has worked weekends, using codewords and secret meetings to get the new brand ready to debut, one of Nike’s executives said.
The stakes are high for the world’s largest sportswear company, which has struggled to bring fresh products to market in recent years and has failed to win over female customers like rivals Lululemon and Alo Yoga.
“It really didn’t feel very authentic to the brand,” said Gina Clementi, a brand strategist who worked at Nike for 12 years before leaving in 2017. Although she isn’t working on the new label, she said she doesn’t see how NikeSkims is “built on any sort of athletic achievements.”
When reached for comment, representatives from Nike and Skims referred to a previous statement from Heidi O’Neill, Nike’s president of consumer, product and brand, who said the partnership “unlocks an incredible opportunity to disrupt the industry,” and a statement from Skims CEO Jens Grede, who said the pair are “poised to create a new standard in the activewear market.”
Kardashian, who raised $270 million in 2023 to value Skims at $4 billion, isn’t your typical Nike athlete. But she has been informally connected to Nike for years according to people familiar with the relationship.
A representative for Kardashian declined to comment.
In recent weeks, though, Nike has moved employees over to NikeSkims, including at least five executives in marketing and operations. Management selected 14-year Nike veteran Jordan Mills to lead operations at the division, which is hiring more employees in product development, merchandise planning, studio operations and graphic design, according to posted job listings. NikeSkims has two co-general managers from Skims: marketing executive Tracy Romulus and merchandising executive Paula Galperin.
Nike’s team, led by women’s fitness executive Jaclyn Safley, is located at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, and in Los Angeles, where Skims is based, according to recent job listings.
Safley, Mills and Galperin didn’t respond to requests for comment. Romulus declined to comment.
Wall Street analysts say they are waiting to see if NikeSkims can make Nike more competitive in the athleisure market and boost the sportswear company’s women’s business, which has grown to $8.6 billion in annual sales but is still much smaller than its $21 billion men’s business.
“Athletic brands have a mixed track record with celebrity partnerships, but NikeSkims seems like a big win for Nike,” Telsey Advisory Group analyst Cristina Fernández said. “It helps that Skims already has a sizable revenue stream and is a fast growing brand.”
