It’s women’s entrepreneurship month, and love or hate Kim Kardashian, she knows how to launch a successful brand.

Kim Kardashian has had several business ventures like SKKN, her skincare brand, SKY partners, her law firm, and her short-lived KKW beauty cosmetic line. However, her latest venture SKIMS, her loungewear brand, has taken the world by storm as it was just announced as the official brand for the NBA.

SKIMS is an American shapewear and clothing brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian, Emme Grede, and Jens Grede. The Kardashian family, which includes her mastermind mother, Kris Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian-Barker, Khloe Kardashian, Rob Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, and Kylie Jenner — all became a prominent fixtures in reality TV.

Their fame, first with “Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and with spin-off shows including “Life of Kylie and “Kourtney and Kim Take Miami,” brought the entire family to the spotlight, which they capitalized on by launching businesses of their own, including “Good American,” “Kylie Cosmetics,” “818 Tequila,” and many more.

Senior Nick Sobon has an idea why every brand attached to the Kardashian name turns to gold.

“People put them on a pedestal and forget about their controversial actions,” he said. “The Kardashians are kinda like watching a car accident; it’s horrible but you can’t look away. They’re a staple of pop culture whether you like it or not.”

In 2021 the Kardashians announced the departure of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” from the E! Entertainment Television, and opted to air a new show called “The Kardashians” on Hulu. In that same year, Kylie Jenner, whose cosmetic line, “Kylie Cosmetics” is worth 1.2 billion according to Business Insider, came under fire past for her inauthentic business project, “Kylie Swim.”

Kylie’s swimwear brand was in a word: subpar. The material did not correlate with the price, and the sizes were not inclusive at all. According to Mamamia, a fashion blog, “the first line featured sunny hues of yellow, pink and orange shaped in a range of bikinis and one-pieces that simply defy gravity, the shape of most women’s bodies, and the strength of the gentlest wave to knock the entire piece of fabric completely off one’s body.” “Kylie Swim” appeared to consumers as nothing but a cash grab.

The general feedback was that the Kardashians just weren’t “giving” what they used to give. The public seemed to see right through their money-hungry antics when SKIMS blew up.

In an interview with Glamour magazine, Kim Kardashian said that she has been “designing shapewear for 15 years” and that SKIMS is her passion project. SKIMS was positively received because of their size range, from XXS through XXXXXL, and somewhat affordable price range, with the average underwear costing $14.

For the first time, a Kardashian brand was reinventing the wheel, not just throwing their name on a new wheel cover. SKIMS was named in Time’s “100 Most Influential Brands” of 2022. It is clear Kim Kardashian saw her family’s mistakes and altered SKIMS to be a reliable, inclusive brand for underwear, loungewear, shapewear, and swimwear.

Jacob Waah, a junior from Yaoundé, Cameroon, found out about SKIMS through the recent new surrounding the NBA.

“I just learned about SKIMS after the whole NBA thing; I didn’t know much about SKMS before that,” he said. “I do know that Kim is smart though, she knows how to make money.”

The SKIMS hype is only increasing the NBA, WNBA, and USA Basketball announcement. According to Forbes, the collaboration between Kim Kardashian’s powerhouse $4 billion dollar shapewear brand and the NBA is a “true game-changer.”

Tamara Richardson, Chief Executive at People’s Pharmacy Ltd. in Bermuda, believes Kim has cracked the code to creating “a brand that provides solutions.”

“She’s not simply selling undergarments, she’s selling confidence,” she said. “She’s positioned SKIMS so that it’s now a one-word item. You don’t need a slip, or a girdle, or shapewear. You simply need SKIMS.”

It looks like Kim now has an answer to her daughter North West’s question: “Mom what do you even do anyways?”