Sorry to the landlocked, but the beach is having a moment. Lorde wrote a whole album about it, Bella Hadid has seemingly spent all summer on a tropical vacation, and the beach is now a meme about getting old movie by M. Night Shamalyan. Kylie Jenner, always on the pulse of the next business opportunity, is capitalizing on the trendy locale with a new swimwear line, aptly named Kylie Swim.
The announcement came in typical Kardashian-style subtlety. Jenner frequently posts bikini photos, so this particular post wouldn’t have grabbed attention if it weren’t for that telling little tag. Without the fanfare of a press rollout, Jenner simply posted a photo of herself wearing a swimsuit onto her Instagram page, and tagged the newly-created @kylieswim. It’s a very cute monokini-style swimsuit, with yellow and pink gradients and a strappy design and halter neck — it feels very contemporary, in terms of today’s fashion motif of straps and cutouts that encircle the body in various configurations, in a Zoomer-friendly colorway that will surely pop on the feed.
The bio for the Kylie Swim account reads “coming soon.” Never mind that, as of press date, it is the middle of August, and much of the Northern Hemisphere will be drinking pumpkin spice lattes in about 10 weeks. Jenner is shrewd. She became an almost-billionaire because she knows what it takes to run a business Maybe Jenner is betting that the market for swimwear will only grow as the planet keeps warming. According to the IPCC’s latest terrifying analysis, summers will be longer and hotter, and overall climates will be less temperate as winter shrinks and generic hot weather replaces the seasons. Either that, or she’s betting people take a lot of tropical vacations once traveling is normalized again regardless of the season.
There’s no word on either pricing or sizing at this point, but here’s hoping that Jenner incorporates inclusivity into her first solo adventure into the apparel market. It runs in the family aferall: size inclusivity is a business move practiced by SKIMS, her older sister Kim Kardashian’s line of underwear and “solutionwear.” Most SKIMS pieces go up to a size 4X (or, per the brand’s size guide, a US dress size 24 — 26); additionally, customers can also toggle between models of different sizes to get a sense of how it may look on their frame. Khloé Kardashian’s Good American is also offered in inclusive sizing. It’s worth noting that women of color, specifically Black women, have championed size-inclusive swimwear. Influencer Gabi Gregg has been collaborating with Swimsuits For All for almost 10 years, offering plus size people a chance to wear gorgeous bikinis, while pushing back against the racist history of pools and beach destinations.
Swimwear comes with environmental and sociocultural contexts that can’t be ignored — it remains to be seen if Jenner can approach these themes with responsibility and like, realizing stuff. Just be sure to apply your Kylie Skin SPF to avoid those UVA/B rays that we’re trapping in the atmosphere.
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Originally posted from “W Magazine” by Meagan Fredette
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