Nike has unveiled its first collection with Skims, the shapewear and apparel brand founded by Kim Kardashian. The launch highlights Nike’s strategy to expand its lifestyle offering and diversify its consumer reach, while continuing to blur boundaries between sportswear, fashion and celebrity-driven labels.
Activewear for performance and lifestyle
The Nike x Skims collection features women’s activewear that spans performance and lifestyle categories. Campaign imagery and film present the range as bridging sport and body-conscious apparel, a space where Skims has built its brand identity.
The partnership adds another high-profile collaboration to Nike’s roster (like Nike × Off-White (“The Ten”) or Nike × Jacquemus), as the company looks to expand its audience beyond traditional sports.
For Skims, the collection offers further entry into performance-inspired clothing, building on its rapid growth in underwear, shapewear and loungewear. Founded in 2019, Skims reached a valuation of around $4 billion in 2023, according to industry reports. The brand has expanded from shapewear into swimwear and ready-to-wear, and has entered wholesale distribution with retailers including Selfridges, Nordstrom and Galeries Lafayette.
Nike experts see “limited downside”
For Nike, the move suggests an intention to strengthen its positioning in women’s apparel – one of the most competitive growth areas in the market – and to compete with brands like Lululemon and Alo Yoga, which straddle both performance and lifestyle segments.
Announced already in February 2025 and initially planned for Spring, market analysts broadly welcomed the partnership. Anna Andreeva of Piper Sandler described the collaboration at Barron’s as “a positive and outside-the-box step under [CEO] Elliott Hill’s new leadership to further accelerate the women’s business.” She upgraded Nike’s stock rating to Overweight, noting that the deal leverages Skims’ cultural relevance while helping Nike address weaknesses in its women’s apparel offering.
The Jefferies equity research team also viewed the partnership at Yahoo Finance as “favorably” and argued that it carries “limited downside,” underlining that consumer interest in Skims could provide Nike with an immediate boost in visibility and demand.
