Can Spanx Survive the Skims Era?

**Malique Morris** (0:02)
You know, Skims launched in 2019, and that immediately became sort of the new metonym for shapewear. It was like, I'm wearing my Spanx, it was like, now I'm wearing my Skims. And Skims' marketing power, and their just doesn't have a force in the industry, just hasn't let up.

**Peter Hamby** (0:23)
Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby.
It's Friday, July 17th. Today, I'm joined by Malique Morris with a fascinating look at Spanx. Yes, Spanx, which once ruled the shapewear marketplace until the Kardashians and Skims came along, sending their business reeling. Malique digs into how Spanx is trying to fight back. We also discussed why so many retailers and fashion brands are bringing in outside executives from completely different industries to revamp their products and storytelling. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.
Happy Friday, everybody, and welcome to The Powers That Be. I'm joined today, it's becoming kind of a Friday routine for us. Malique Morris, Carving the Worlds of Retail and Fashion for Linesheet. Malique is gonna talk to me about some Sturm und Drang at Spanx. Yes, Spanx is going through some hard times. They're bringing in new CEOs, Blackstone, Malique broke the news, quietly sold them off. We're also gonna talk a little bit about this trend of big brands, fashion houses, retailers, bringing in executives from other industries to right the ship. But first, Malique, you have been breaking news left and right on the Spanx beat. I got to admit this is something you might know more about than I do. But as always, I learn a lot from you. Let's start.

**Malique Morris** (2:09)
I was gonna say it's a recurring theme for us.

**Peter Hamby** (2:12)
It is. And again, you know, I've got my James Pierce shirt on.
I like my clothes, but I'm learning a lot about other verticals. You look great too in your APC hat. So you start your most recent piece about Spanx, Malique, with a little anecdote. You're watching the Mindy Kaling show, NSFW, Not Suitable for Work. Who shows up in a cameo role? None other than Sarah Blakely, the er girl boss who founded Spanx many, many years ago, made a lot of money, eventually sold to Blackstone in 2021
You write at the time they were facing increased pressure from Skims, the Kardashian shapewear brand. But look, for as celebrated as she is in the girl boss world, along with Mindy Kaling, you write that Sarah hasn't exactly been relevant on the Spanx scene. She has like a quiet board seat, I believe. What's going on with Spanx? Have they just lost the market share? Is there too much competitive pressure in that space? Tell our listeners why they're facing such difficult times.

**Malique Morris** (3:18)
So the answer to the question is all the above. Yes, Skims came in. I mean, I'm hard pressed for any viewer or listeners to not know what Spanx is. They literally were pioneers in shapewear.
The footless pantyhose that was form hugging and kind of form shaping was really revolutionary. And Sarah Blakely, the founder, was really just a visionary leader, was someone who was literally on the shop floor in department store selling it herself and turned it into a brand that defined the category that had sales of upwards of $100 million, and was able to sell to this private equity giant, Blackstone, in 2021 for $1.2 billion, where she stepped down as CEO and then just became the executive chair.
But around that time that happened, they did a sale. Skims launched in 2019, and that immediately became sort of the metonym, the new metonym for shapewear. It was like, I'm wearing my Spanx. It was like, now I'm wearing my Skims. And Skims' marketing power, and their just doesn't as a force in the industry, just hasn't let up. And Spanx just hasn't been able to modernize. And one of the things that they were really doing and pushing between 2021 and 2024 or even 2025 was really kind of going hard in apparel. But as I wrote my story, it's like, if you're going to do that, the clothes needs to look distinctive. The clothes needs to look special if you're going to try to transition out of being a shapewear leader or you were forced to transition out of being a shapewear leader. The clothes that you're creating has to be something that feels idiosyncratic to you, and that wasn't the case. And so, you know, sales have just been declining, profits have really been declining, and in the story, you know, I broke the news that Cricket Witton, who came in as, who has been with the brand for a very long time, I think she joined in 2017 as like the growth officer and was promoted to CEO in 2024, that she quietly exited the business last fall and was seceded by a gentleman who was there for a very short amount of time, and actually he was trying to make Spanx into like this licensing thing, and then he left to actually become CEO of a tire company, and then they brought Robert Troubarin, who was a long-time CEO of this brand called Johnny Was, and now he's even been floating the idea of like putting Spanx into like TJ Maxx and Marshalls, which is just not great for brand equity. Obviously, all that has a volume play, but it's not gonna do much to help Spanx compete with Skims, and then as I just were following along the reporting over the course of the last week, I got another tip that, because a lot of this was framed around Blackstone making a bad bet on Spanx, because when they acquired the company for $1.2 billion in 2021, Skims was already around, they were already losing mind share with consumers. I mean, clearly not enough for Blackstone to want to make this bet, but the writing was probably on the wall, and yet they still did this deal, and at the time, Spanx was doing like 400 million annual sales, and they wanted to get it up to 500 million annual sales. That has not happened, but as I was following my reporting along last week, I got a tip and found out that actually at the end of June, Blackstone had sold their stake to HSP Investment Partners, which is a subsidy area, BlockRock, another huge private equity giant. But HPS Investment Partners is actually a private lender, and they're essentially a creditor. They loaned Spanx money in conjunction with the Blackstone deal. So they essentially just sold them to the creditor. So not great, not a great exit. They definitely probably didn't do it at a premium. So yeah, not a great end. And also you were mentioning Sarah Blakely and her cameo in Not Suitable for Work, which was funny because her cameo in that show was surrounding an investment bank that one of the characters works at, and she's trying to acquire another company under the Spanx banner. But as we know, that Spanx is actually the one that's the acquisition target, and Sarah Blakely really hasn't been involved. And actually in conjunction with Blackstone selling it to HPS Investment Partners, Sarah actually stepped down from the board.