What the Fendi x Skims collabo could mean

«Prepare for trouble! Make it double!». This could be the motto of the new collaboration between Fendi and Skims, or between Kim and Kim, whose images appeared online yesterday afternoon perhaps by mistake in the IG Stories of @connie_personal_shopping and then quickly removed. According to rumors that emerged from Reddit and other online forums, the collection should be presented even next month, although obviously both brands have maintained a complete silence about it.

If nothing else, the collaboration explains Kim Kardashian's presence in Fendi's Rome headquarters last summer and, above all, gives an interesting glimpse of what is happening behind the scenes of both brands: on the one hand, there is Kim Jones, the new artistic director of a legendary brand but who must find his identity in a fur-free world and in an already oversaturated fashion market; on the other there is Kim Kardashian who, after the end of the reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, intends to become a fashion icon of modern times with her collaborations with Balenciaga, her involvement in the creative shows / outings of her ex-husband Kanye West and above all with her brand Skims, born recently, already successful but started to position closer to that of luxury fashion than to that of one of the many celebrity brands that appeared in the last years.

Kim Jones and the new Fendi identity

It would be superfluous to underline the enormous skills of Kim Jones in his work, his curriculum speaks for itself – a curriculum extraordinarily full of collaborations: from the legendary one of Louis Vuitton and Supreme, to seasonal collaborations with artists such as Daniel Arsham and Amoako Boafo, to the Dior Homme collection co-signed with Travis Scott, up to the very recent Fendi collection with the graphics of Antonio Lopez and the swap between Fendi and Versace that closed the last one Milan Fashion Week. In the case of the latest collaborations involving Fendi, of which he became creative director last year, it is clear that Kim's plan is to give impetus to a brand that, despite the excellent work of Silvia Venturini Fendi, had lost its spark with the death of Karl Lagerfeld and above all must face an increasingly sustainable and therefore fur-free fashion industry – a not easy challenge for a brand that was born as a fur industry and that, together with its Baguette Bag, has in furs its main signature. The collaborations with young and successful artists and brands represent precisely his attempt to re-establish Fendi's visual identity just as he did with Dior Homme.

Collaborating with Kim Kardashian therefore means collaborating with one of the most famous personalities of the fashion industry, but also returning the brand to the original vision imposed by Lagerfeld already in 1965: that of rejuvenating the world of fur, of proposing furs with pop and bold colors, with youthful cuts that would remain desirable even for the new generations. The same famous monogram of the brand, that of the two mirror F to be clear, is the acronym of the motto Fun Furs. Almost from the beginning, therefore, the idea behind the brand has been to take something stately and make it youthful. Over time, however, despite the enormous expansion of the brand, Fendi accessories and especially bags have become an identifying brand while ready-to-wear, although excellent, has failed to develop a visual identity strong enough to go beyond the classic logo. And so the choice to collaborate with Kim Kardashian and Skims makes sense as both the brand and its founder today represent the ultimate in celebrity, especially among Millennials and Gen Z, the two most important market segments for the contemporary fashion industry. 

Kim Kardashian and the Skims boom

Born with a controversy regarding her name but immediately relaunched with great success thanks to the popularity of Kardashian, Skims has expanded with a disconcerting rapidity in the last year: launched at the end of 2019, the brand soon arrived on the shelves of some of the most important luxury retailers such as Selfridges and Nordstrom going into constant sold-out; the brand's campaigns include Kate Moss, Megan Fox and Kourtney Kardashian; pop-ups were opened in Los Angeles and Paris and, of course, the brand also became the official supplier of underwear and shapewear for the American team at the last Tokyo Olympics. And all this during a year marked by the lockdown, which saw a collapse in retail and an economic crisis in fashion.

It is clear that the brand reputation of Skims is one with that of its founder, who already between July and August 2021 had entered into a hyper-direct dialogue with high fashion thanks to her relationship with Demna Gvasalia who made her one of her muses, as well as one of the unofficial faces of Balenciaga. In addition to her new liaison with Balenciaga, Kim was also the recent star of one of the most watched SNL episodes of recent months, is about to launch a new show on Hulu, will voice one of the protagonists of the animated film Paw Patrol and will certainly be linked to the upcoming launches related to Yeezy x Gap and the new Kanye West shows. In short, the collaboration of Skims and Fendi would mean not only a very important validation for the brand but also a further step towards Kardashian's entry into high fashion – and not as a model or influencer but as a creative and fashion personality in her own right.