🎙️ Jens Grede
The world is starting to get back to work which means many women are turning to shapewear brands to help counteract the last few months of comfort food consumption. So I thought this would be a perfect time to chat with Jens Grede. Jens is the partner and board director of Kim Kardashian West’s shapewear brand SKIMS. And this Sweden native is a savvy fashion executive whose eclectic career path has given him quite a unique and clear-eyed perspective on the industry.
Jens Grede
After a stint working at the interior design magazine Wallpaper* at the start of his career, at the tender age of 25, Jens decided to start Saturday, a London-based creative agency. He launched it in 2003 with his business partner Eric Torstensson. The organization quickly grew to include a stable of companies focused on everything from brand management, public relations, and art direction to talent brokering, e-commerce, and publishing - in the form of the highly respected Industrie magazine. Later renamed Saturday Group, with offices in the four fashion capitals, the business eventually also dove into the apparel side of fashion when, in 2012, it debuted the well regarded California lifestyle brand FRAME.
Today, along with his duties as co-executive chairmen and co-executive creative director of FRAME, Jens also has taken up the task of scaling the shapewear phenomenon that is SKIMS. The brainchild of Kim Kardashian West, the company has seen exponential growth since its launch in September of 2019. Its inclusive approach to shapewear with its broad size range and extensive skin tone color options has seen the company sell out of most of its stock within the 24 hours of a drop and has garnered an enviable loyal client base with 38% of first-time shoppers becoming returning customers.
During our Zoom video call, Jens and I talked about the difficulties of trying to break into a market that is dominated by a single player. How hands-on Kim is with the creative direction of the company, the clear advantages of e-commerce focused business built on transparency, and how Jens plans to expand the growing SKIMS empire into new categories.
Just on a technical side note, I did want to let all you listeners know that because Jens and I did our interview over Zoom video you might pick up on a couple of very minor audio issues. And if you happen to be more of a visual learner, feel free to head over to my signature YouTube channel to watch the video version of this podcast in action.
Ok, now it's time to discover just how Jens sees the future of both fashion and SKIMS.
