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Shapewear and the word “sexy” don’t typically coexist. In fact, shapewear – in all its tummy-tucking, waist-cinching, thigh-thinning glory – is anything but, rather a means to hold in a few unwelcome lady lumps and a girl’s best friend when it comes to unflattering, form-fitting frocks. That is until today. Kim Kardashian West – reality TV star, beauty mogul, lawyer-in-motion – is launching her own shapewear line, Kimono Solutionwear™, making it official: she truly can make anything sexy.
A secret project which has been in the works for some time (and naturally setting the internet ablaze with fashionable canard), turns out it was all in the name of a little control brief and contour bra. “Finally I can share with you guys this project that I have been developing for the last year,” she announced on Instagram. “I’ve been passionate about this for 15 years. Kimono is my take on shapewear and solutions for women that actually work.”
Not exactly shapewear, Kimono Solutionwear™ is exactly as its name would suggest; a solution. A solution to a problem Kim apparently faced daily. “I would always cut up my shapewear to make my own styles, and there have also been so many times I couldn’t find a shapeware colour that blended with my skin tone so we needed a solution for all of this,” she says. So what does any power-wielding Kardashian do? Make her own, of course. Kimono Solutionwear™ will be available in sizes XXS – 4XL and in nine shades, a kind of inclusive Shapewear for the every woman and “every body”.
The campaign, shot by Vanessa Beecroft – a longtime collaborator with husband Kanye West – definitely has a sense of the Yeez-ies about it and to Kardashian’s point, embraces the female form in many of its beautiful incarnations. There’s little boobies and big boobies. Little booties and big booties. Little thighs and big thighs. Plus of course a varying palette of skin tones. But the campaign hasn’t come without its critics. Like a big, social whack; everything from the lack of true plus size models to cultural appropriation (in the name, ‘Kimono’) has flooded her Instagram page.
But where there’s fire, there’s water, and there’s plenty of fans who are equally enthralled by the forthcoming collection. With no official launch date as yet, we can get excited about the first style, the “Solution Short”. A kind of one-legged short which at first had us stumped, the unevenly cut short is actually the most perfect answer to fashion’s persistent conundrum of thigh-high splits (a Kardashian West favourite). “I developed this style for all of those times I wanted to wear a dress or skirt with a slit and still needed the support.” A solution, indeed.
Inclusive shapewear for “every body”? This will no doubt be a hit.
