Kim Kardashian has spent the best part of a decade convincing us that the most flattering thing a woman can wear is invisible. SKIMS built a billion-dollar empire on smooth, seamless basics in shades of beige, creating undergarments designed to disappear under clothes rather than command attention.
This week in London, however, she stepped out in hand-laced leather and heavy metal eyelets instead. The shift was unmissable: the era of hiding your shapewear is officially over.
Is SKIMS Regent Street the Brand's Biggest Era Yet?
The occasion was the opening of SKIMS' first UK flagship, a 12,000-square-foot store on Regent Street designed by Rafael de Cárdenas. A Vanessa Beecroft sculpture greets visitors at the entrance, and the space carries the kind of design weight usually reserved for a fashion-week showroom rather than a shapewear shop.
It is the brand's largest store in Europe and its clearest statement yet that SKIMS wants to be seen as more than a basics label. The opening unsurprisingly drew in buzz, with online reaction already treating it as one of the London fashion moments of the year.
From Invisible to Unmissable: Kim's Grommet-Studded Debut
Kardashian marked the opening with custom looks from Ludovic de Saint Sernin, the Paris-based designer known for pairing fetish-inspired hardware with body-conscious tailoring, and the change from SKIMS' usual smoothing basics was deliberate.
The standout piece was a brown leather bustier with a grommet-studded décolleté, made by hand in de Saint Sernin's Paris atelier, paired with a wool mermaid skirt in a matching nude tone.
Later in the evening, she changed into a nude metal-mesh two-piece, finished with Swarovski crystals at the neckline and waist. The outfit changes throughout the night, all drawn from the same collaboration, turned the store opening into something closer to a runway presentation than a ribbon-cutting.
Everything We Know About the Skims X Ludovic de Saint Sernin Capsule
The choice of collaborator reveals a lot about where SKIMS wants to go next. De Saint Sernin has built his name on hand-finished leatherwork and laced silhouettes that sit somewhere between sensuality and armour.
Putting a Los Angeles basics brand together with a Parisian atelier known for that kind of craft is a clear bid to push SKIMS from foundations into occasionwear territory.
The looks shown in London preview the pair's collaboration, which launches on 1 October. Shoppers should expect lace-up bodices, sheer panels and neutral hardware details, as SKIMS tests what its own version of outerwear looks like beyond the core shapewear range that made it famous.
Shapewear's Next Chapter Is All About Hardware
Kardashian's pivot taps into a broader shift on the global red carpet. Corset bodices, laced-up side seams, and industrial eyelets have steadily replaced sheer naked dresses, offering a harder, more structured take on modern sensuality.
SKIMS spent years perfecting invisibility, turning body-shaping garments into something worn in secret. Now, backed by a monumental European flagship and a Paris couture collaborator, Kardashian is proving that functional foundations can evolve into high-octane outerwear. By swapping seamless edges for heavy-duty grommets, SKIMS is not just opening a new store; it is rewriting the rules of modern eveningwear.
