Maddie Eggensperger
Professor Foust
PRL 206
30 October 2025
RESEARCH:
Skims, an underwear, loungewear, and shapewear company founded in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, has faced criticism since its founding, though the brand has gained much popularity with a $4 Billion valuation. Skims has been vocal about their contributions to sustainability, including featuring packaging for their online orders that states “I AM NOT PLASTIC” as well as social responsibility and environmental initiatives on their website. Social responsibility initiatives include membership of the Fair Labor Association, an international network ensuring millions of people working at factories and farms worldwide are paid fairly and protected from risks to their health, safety, and well-being, where Skims is working to attain Fair Labor Accreditation, and supporting Baby2Baby, an organization providing essential items to children in need. Environmental initiatives include a partnership with SuperCircle, a platform helping the “best” retail brands recycle; a partnership with Watershed, a platform for emissions measurement, reductions, and reporting; and the participation in Frontier, an advance market commitment to buy an initial $1B of permanent carbon removal by 2030, which has allowed Skims to contribute over $1 million to start-ups developing new technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. However, among these implementations which seem environmentally friendly, the packaging, which states it isn’t made of plastic, is made of plastic, according to a number 4 logo on the back of the packaging, highlighting it is either made of a Plastic 4 or Low-Density Polyethylene, a type of plastic. Additionally, Skims’ commitment to sustainability is misleading since their fabrics include nylon and spandex, of which their use, disposal, and production contributes negatively to the environment by emitting greenhouse gases, contributing to energy and water consumption, and chemical pollution.
This is a PR issue because Skims needs to replace their criticism with praise through building client trust, which is what a PR practitioner specializes in. Audiences who are proponents of the environment are aware of Skims misleading audiences, and in order to gain customers from this audience, Skims should rely on using PR to influence people to buy from their company through gaining trust in their word regarding environmental policies and being transparent. This also helps build their corporate reputation and allows this company to gain a more widespread audience than their typical audience, which consists of women aged 18-44, and is growing to include men and those interested in sportswear.
AUDIENCE:
Skims is trying to reach the audience of those who intend to shop sustainably and steer away from brands that produce products with fabrics that are not sustainable and have poor ethical practices. This audience is typically women who are either Gen Z or Millennial. Often, people who primarily shop second-hand in order to benefit the environment like to splurge on nice clothes once in a while if they have the financial means, and they search for the most ethical brand to purchase from. Skims could be this brand, as they have built a large following through their campaigns and commitment to inclusion and comfortability in their products. The downside, from the perspective of this audience, is their misleading sustainability mission. With the innovation, this audience can build trust in Skims to deliver sustainable pieces, in a way targeted to Gen Z and Millennial consumers, who primarily are influenced by social media.
GOAL:
The goal for the implementation of environmentally conscious materials for Skims products and packaging is to build the reputation of Skims as a truly sustainable company and to gain a larger audience for their products. Skims will switch to non-plastic packaging for their products and change from nylon to an environmentally-friendly material, such as ECONYL. Social media influencers that are known for promoting sustainable fashion will post on multiple platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, endorsing Skims as an environmentally conscious company and promote the clothes with the ECONYL fabric as pieces a consumer would want to purchase and wear.
OBJECTIVES:
Skims will decrease nylon in fabrics used to make Skims products by 75% by the end of the next 5 months, replacing this fabric with ECONYL, an environmentally conscious substitute for nylon.
Skims will also reach out to 10-15 popular social media influencers to post about Skims’ new fabric launch on TikTok and Instagram, increasing sales of Skims’ products by 40% in three months.
PESO ANALYSIS:
Skims will achieve their goal through the implementation of the PESO model. Paid media will be used through social media ads promoting the different, more sustainable fabrics in a desirable way to boost sales and promote the brand. Earned media will be used through influencer relations, as Skims will reach out to influencers who are critical of fast fashion practices and explain Skims’ new implementations in order to promote Skims, building trust between the audience and Skims. Shared media will be used through social monitoring to determine the impact of influencer relations and advertisements on audiences. Owned media will be used through email lists to promote Skims’ improved sustainable practices, in order to reach audiences that do not have social media.
CONCLUSION:
Skims is a very successful brand that is rapidly growing and expanding its audience. Skims can become even more successful if they increase their efforts at sustainability, bringing in a new audience that may have been hesitant to purchase their products. With many fashion brands steering away from sustainability initiatives, Skims can shift the industry to becoming more environmentally conscious. These implementations exemplify Skims’ commitment to their clients and the environment.
