Skims is coming to India: What Kim Kardashian’s shapewear empire means for India’s booming market

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Reality star and business mogul Kim Kardashian has spent much of her career being told that her body was the product. With Skims, she figured out how to make the product the business.

Founded with Jens Grede in 2019, Skims began with shapewear and underwear and has since expanded into loungewear, menswear, swim and activewear. In November 2025, the company raised $225 million at a $5 billion valuation (roughly ₹41,500 crore), with projected 2025 net sales of more than $1 billion (roughly ₹8,300 crore). For a six-year-old apparel company, it is an extraordinary trajectory: Kim and Jens have taken something once largely hidden under clothes and turned it into a global lifestyle business.

On August 5, Reliance Brands announced an exclusive partnership with Skims. The first stores will open in Mumbai and Delhi, followed by a phased expansion across other cities and digital channels. The move comes as Skims expands internationally, following recent openings in London and Dubai, with Hong Kong and Seoul also on the roadmap.

“The excitement we’ve seen from our community in India has been truly incredible,” Kim said in the announcement. Isha Ambani, director, Reliance Retail Ventures, said Skims had “changed how the world thinks about shape, comfort and inclusivity”, adding that the brand speaks to a generation of Indian consumers who want fashion that is “aspirational and made for them.”

The brand is built on a deep understanding of fit, comfort, and the body | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

That last bit — made for them — is where the India story gets interesting. Because Skims is entering a market where Indian brands have spent years trying to answer a specific question: what does shapewear look like when the body underneath it isn’t a Western sample size?

Skims may have the Kardashian effect, but Indian shapewear isn’t exactly waiting for a teacher. “You cannot school the teacher; she is the teacher!” says Pankhuri Harikrishnan, founder and director of Delhi-based communication and brand experience agency Fetch Consulting, of Kim’s ability to turn product marketing into cultural conversation. But Pankhuri also pushes back on the idea that Indian shapewear is still primarily a wedding purchase. “I do not think weddings largely drive the market.” The bigger shift, she says, is towards launches, events and everyday occasions when consumers want to look and feel their best.

For Anjali Gaekwar, Mumbai-based luxury brand advisor and co-founder of Lighthouse, a boutique retail and lifestyle advisory firm, that evolution is part of a broader premiumisation of the category. “The premium consumer isn’t buying a foundational garment anymore; she’s buying an invisible layer of craftsmanship.” The opportunity, she believes, is increasingly in everyday shapewear that can disappear beneath tailoring, knitwear, saris and kurtas.

There is money behind that shift.