Kim Kardashian doesn’t seem to want us to divert anyone’s gaze. She wants us all to feel so good in our bodies that, instead of saying “I’m up here!” we simply don’t care if anyone stares. Earlier last week, she released a viral Skims bra with perky nipples built in. Today, her Skims collaboration with Swarovski finally launched, featuring body jewelry and bodysuits that make you look naked but dripping in crystals.
The Swarovski x Skims collection is the first time the Austrian crystal company has ever worked in partnership with another brand to create clothing that will be available to shop in its stores. Over the phone from her office, Swarovski creative director Giovanna Engelbert told me the collaboration has been in the works for a year and a half. She was drawn to Kardashian’s Skims because it’s led by women, but also because she believes the brand “shares the same values—empowerment of women and self-expression and unapologetically being yourself and having the right to present yourself to the world however you want.”
Engelbert wanted to build the collection around Swarovski’s Millenia necklace, which she called the “Taylor Swift necklace.” The pop star wore it in her “Bejeweled” music video with a bedazzled bodysuit to spin around in a martini glass alongside Dita Von Teese. Engelbert told me she’d be thrilled if customers channeled that same energy with the Swarovski x Skims body jewelry, which uses the necklace’s octagon-cut crystals on long chains that hug the hips and torso like a glistening harness. She noted the crystals will change in appearance depending on the wearer’s skin tone: “It’ll highlight the bodies—all different kinds of bodies.”
Skims has built a business currently valued at $4 billion by creating shapewear and underpinnings that look like your skin. On TikTok, where the brand often goes viral for its skintight pieces that mold to your curves like … well … skin, customers can be seen showing off their figures with Kardashian-level confidence while literally begging the brand to take all of their money. Evidently, Skims has done that, but with this new launch it hopes to enter the world of clothing to be worn out of the house. Swarovski x Skims is what happens when you break out of the comfort of your bras-and-briefs cocoon, morphing into a butterfly who wants to go out in a crystal mesh dress.
Over email, Kardashian told me she’s long understood the transformative powers of a Swarovski crystal. “I’ve had the figurines forever and would put the crystals on my laptops and cell phones. The sparkle and glamour of Swarovski’s crystals is so fun to me,” she said. She hopes this new collection will bring more “joy and glamour” into Skims customers’ everyday wardrobes. But even more importantly, she’s excited to see how they style the pieces.
“The collection is meant to be versatile, and there are pieces for any preference or occasion,” Kardashian wrote. “The collaboration can be styled in multiple ways for every body, which is what Skims is all about.”
She won’t have to wonder much longer to about the ways her fans will style it. As of this morning, videos of loyal Skims customers driving hours to the closest store to get their hands on a piece started trickling onto my TikTok feed. Like everything Kardashian touches, the new collection is clearly the type of thing that warrants not just staring but intense fangirl devotion. And maybe in 2023, it’s not diamonds but pairs of crystal-embellished underwear that are really a girl’s best friend.
Tara Gonzalez is the Senior Fashion Editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Previously, she was the style writer at InStyle, founding commerce editor at Glamour, and fashion editor at Coveteur.
