Whenever my gorgeous little fingers fly to my keyboard to write about Kim Kardashian—entrepreneur, comedian, and revered, sometimes-Irish actress—my inbox is almost as instantly filled with hate. “Will you shut the hell up, you feckless queen?” one thesaurus-browsing fan wrote to me last week. “Stop embarrassing gay people with Kardashian crap. I mean, are you that vacuous?” (Yes, I am, but that’s not the point.) To my new friend, I have one thing to say: I’ll stop bringing shame to our community when Kim Kardashian stops being an innovative genius.
It looks like that won’t be happening anytime soon, given the launch of Kardashian’s latest (and perhaps greatest) invention yet: the SKIMS Ultimate Nipple Bra. It’s a bra with a built-in hard nipple shape on the breast, and I genuinely think it’s the most sensational thing I’ve seen all week. But even more clever is Kardashian’s advert announcing it, which I believe to be irrefutable proof that this woman is—like it or not—a real, bona fide talent.
In the ad, we’re thrust into the beige interior of SKIMS HQ. For those who may be unfamiliar: SKIMS is Kardashian’s highly successful shapewear brand (once briefly called “Kimono,” in one of her more blatantly boneheaded gaffes), famous for its body-hugging intimates in a wide array of nude skin tone colors and ultra-soft fabrics. As a successful businesswoman, Kim always has her head in the game, and here, we get an exclusive, behind-the-scenes peek at her proprietary process.
Seated at a chunky desktop computer on a set decked out in ’90s office paraphernalia, Kim and her two perfectly placed flyaways are click-clacking away at the keyboard. “The Earth’s temperature is getting hotter and hotter,” she begins, perhaps quoting a beautiful passage by one Onika Maraj, just before she pounded the alarm. “The sea levels are rising. The ice sheets are shrinking. And I’m not a scientist, but I do believe everyone can use their skill set to do their part.”
After the 6,000 times I’ve watched this video, this dialogue still hasn’t gotten old. I feel as if I wrote, directed, and styled this ad. Kim’s semi-satirical line delivery is truly hilarious; whatever acting courses she took to prepare for her role on AHS: Delicate need to replace the entire Juilliard curriculum as it currently exists. Kim continues by telling us that, because the Earth’s temperatures are rising, she’s introducing a brand new bra with a built-in nipple. “So no matter how hot it is, you’ll always look cold.” What a ridiculous, totally preposterous idea. I love it.
“Some days are hard… but these nipples are harder,” she says, leaning back on her desk to push out her chest. “And unlike the icebergs: These aren’t going anywhere.” As she says this with a wink in her eye and a song in her heart, the camera crash-zooms to show us Kim’s Kovered, Konvex Kantaloupes, protruding through her SKIMS shapewear with an unmistakable nipple shape. At this point, you may be thinking, “Why the hell would I want a bra that looks like my nipples are bulging out of it, which is part of the function of a regular bra: to hide a hard nipple?” Well, because sometimes you just want to look sculpted from the delicate hands of Michaelangelo himself. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to show off the teats that god gave ya, baby!
In all fairness, Kim does say that the built-in nipple is “for shock factor” in her announcement, but what’s so shocking about human anatomy? We’ve all got them; might as well display the art sitting on your chest. The ad itself seems to aim for a similar level of shock, courting controversy by being curiously flippant about climate change. But Kim takes that seriously too! “In addition to our investment in advancing carbon removal,” she wrote, “SKIMS is proud to donate 10% of sales from our SKIMS Ultimate Nipple Bra, as a one-time donation, to 1% for the Planet.” That org sounds vague, but is apparently dedicated to helping businesses give back by reducing their carbon footprint.
Now, is that a particularly sizable donation? No. And I’m not here to pretend it is. But I do think that, at the very least, it’s respectable for Kim to make some sort of monetary donation if her ad is going to poke fun at a very bleak topic. Honestly, the end of the world is coming at some point; if we can’t laugh about it, with our fake bra nipples poking each other’s eyes out when things turn Mad Max chaotic, what else can we do? (Yes, Kris Jenner, I’ll take two spots on the Mooncraft when the temperatures reach unlivable extremes. Thank you!)
