Kylie Jenner’s Next Act: From Single Brand to Fashion Portfolio
Kylie Jenner’s latest moves in fashion, from expanding Khy into a minimalist 90s style footwear collection to fronting a new SKIMS campaign, highlight a strategy where celebrity founders build diversified, overlapping fashion portfolios instead of relying on a single hero brand.
Kylie Jenner fashion is no longer confined to one logo or category; it is a network of brands where she alternates roles as founder, creative director and headline model. On one side, she launches the Khy footwear collection with Italian label Gia Borghini, blending Italian craftsmanship with stripped-back 1990s and early-2000s influences. On the other, she becomes the face of SKIMS’ Everyday Cotton collection, posing in near-nude images to promote everyday underwear and bras. This dual presence is not accidental. It shows a deliberate bet that modern celebrity fashion brands will win by covering multiple wardrobe moments—basics, shapewear and now shoes—rather than staying in a single lane.
Khy x Gia Borghini: Minimalist 90s Style With Serious Craft
Khy’s first footwear collection is the clearest sign that Jenner wants Khy to be more than a merch line. Built with Gia Borghini, the range fuses Italian craftsmanship and minimalist 90s style, turning a celebrity label into something that feels closer to a design house collaboration than a quick drop. The shoes are made in Italy, pairing Khy’s visual direction with a footwear specialist that already works with well-known fashion names.
The Khy footwear collection is tight but intentional: three silhouettes—the Studio Thong, Muse Thong and Icon Sandal—designed as a compact shoe wardrobe rather than a chaotic trend dump. Each style leans on clean lines and a minimalist influence with clear references to 1990s and early 2000s fashion. The palette stays disciplined too: black leather, white leather, metallic chrome and chocolate pony hair. This restraint matters. It says Khy is positioning itself as a refined, design-led player, not a fast-fashion spin-off of Kylie Jenner’s fame.
Why Partnering With Real Craftspeople Changes the Celebrity Game
The Gia Borghini partnership is more than a styling flex; it is a credibility play. Choosing an established shoemaker pulls Khy out of the usual celebrity fashion brands category, where star power often compensates for weak product. The shoes are crafted in Italy, fusing Khy’s aesthetic with Gia Borghini’s technical know-how and industry experience. That is a different proposition from slapping a famous name onto generic footwear.
This approach matters for consumers who have grown wary of influencer merch. Collaborations with respected craftspeople turn a Kylie Jenner fashion drop into something that can stand up in a closet next to non-celebrity labels. It signals that Khy is willing to invest in materials, construction and design discipline instead of relying only on hype. The message is clear: if you buy into Khy, you are not only buying into Kylie—you are buying into a supply chain and design culture that has existed long before she entered the category.
SKIMS Everyday Cotton: Visibility, Comfort and the Power of Basics
While Khy steps into footwear, Jenner’s SKIMS campaign keeps her front and center in another corner of the wardrobe: everyday underwear. SKIMS has launched its Everyday Cotton collection, a line of high-quality cotton bras and underwear positioned as soft, stretchy and comfortable basics. Jenner models key pieces in a series of revealing images that have already caused a stir, reinforcing how much visibility she can bring to any product line.
Jenner’s quotes in the press release are revealing. She says she loved being part of the Everyday Cotton campaign and praises the collection for nailing cotton as an everyday fabric, stressing how soft and stretchy the pieces feel and how well they fit. Kim Kardashian, meanwhile, frames the collection around a simple idea: “Your everyday bras and underwear should feel as thought out as everything else in your closet.” By refining basics people already liked with softer premium cotton, the SKIMS campaign sells comfort as design, not an afterthought.
A New Template for Celebrity Fashion Brands
Taken together, Khy’s footwear push and the SKIMS campaign show how celebrity fashion brands are maturing. Instead of staying in their original lanes—beauty for Kylie, shapewear for SKIMS—they are moving into adjacent categories, from shoes to experimental pieces like the SKIMS Faux Hair Micro String Thong. That expansion is not random; it builds a web of products that can dress the same consumer at different moments of the day.
The lesson is that celebrity alone is no longer enough. The next wave of celebrity fashion will be judged on product, not just personality. In that context, Kylie Jenner’s mix of minimalist 90s style footwear, Italian-made collaborations and high-visibility basics campaigns looks less like scattered side projects and more like a deliberate fashion portfolio. If she keeps pairing hype with credible craft, Khy and her wider ventures could outlive the typical celebrity brand life cycle—and force rivals to take product quality as seriously as they take their own image.
