With Kylie Jenner’s eponymous beauty brand reportedly in financial trouble and Kim Kardashian’s make-up brand launching to less fanfare than ever before – are the architects of modern influence losing their ‘klout’?

By Naomi MayUpdated: 31 May 2024

It started when the youngest of the KarJenner ‘klan’ dipped her toe into the saturated world of celebrity clothing lines. When Kylie Jenner, entrepreneur, founder of Kylie Skin and mother-of-two, announced the launch of Khy in October 2023, the internet responded with, well, very little. And therein lies the problem.

Jenner’s post introducing the clothing label to her 399 million followers, which has been liked more than 2 million times, was captioned simply, ‘meet khy.’ This is the same entrepreneur whose infamous Lip Kits sold out just 10 minutes after they launched in 2015. The same entrepreneur who, in the days leading up to the Lip Kit launch, flooded her Instagram with posts intended to generate buzz. There was a post reminding her followers that there were 24 hours to go until her Lip Kits launched; there was a multitude of posts of gratitude upon the news that they’d sold out so rapidly. This was an influencer in her infancy. Fast forward a year, and Jenner revealed that in November 2016, Kylie Cosmetics generated roughly $19 million (£15 million) in sales in just 24 hours.

Walter McBride

The winds appear to be changing, however, on the famous family. Where any of the family goes, criticism is sure soon to follow, so it didn’t take long for the critics to swarm the star’s social channels upon revealing the launch of Khy. Detractors argued that the most chameleonic of the KarJenners – who was named as Forbes’ youngest ‘self-made billionaire’ in 2019 – couldn’t possibly contribute anything to the fashion industry that didn’t already exist. ‘The last thing we needed is another brand by you,’ one user wrote on social media. Another questioned whether it was an ‘try hard’ effort from Jenner to ‘be relevant.’

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@tina_yong

Replying to @Alexa Lynn I got my normal size “S” but it was way too big. Definitely need to buy smaller #khy #kyliejenner #fashion @Khy

♬ Paint The Town Red (Instrumental) – Doja Cat

On TikTok, users also flocked in their droves to question the brand’s authenticity and quality. ‘I am so entirely confused,’ one user said in a video. Despite Khy’s mission statement upon launch being that the aim of the brand was to offer ‘investment pieces at an affordable price point,’ the user questioned why the brand’s second collaboration with Entire Studios, was loungewear that looked almost identical to Skims and Good American, two brands that were respectively founded by Jenner’s sisters, Kim and Khloe. ‘Why do they all cannibalise each other’s brands?,’ she asked in a video. Another user called Khy’s collection ‘crap products’ that ‘doesn’t look like anything Kylie would wear.’

But it’s not just TikTok users. Upon Khy’s first collection’s launch, which was in collaboration with the design duo Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl of Namilia, a Berlin-based brand, creative director and designer Betsy Johnson accused the billionaire of ripping off her ideas. Johnson claimed that she had emailed Jenner’s team concepts, language and line sheets from her own label, Products, six months ago and claimed that they then used these ideas without due credit. Jenner did not respond to Johnson’s allegations.

Courtesy of brand

‘We emailed Kylie and all her team @products.ltd concept and language and a line sheet 6 MONTHS AGO,’ she wrote on her Instagram Stories. ‘INTERESTING CONCEPT KYLIE:… INTERESTING. Thanks for the co-sign… F**k your support.’

It didn’t stop there. Rumours began circulating about Jenner and her businesses once again in May 2024 when a TikTok user by the name of @nicky.reardon began floating the idea that Jenner’s namesake beauty brand, the same one that sold out of lip kits within its first 24 hours, may be headed towards bankruptcy.

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@nicky.reardon

The downfall of Kylie Cosmetics is one of the most fascinating marketing case studies of our time… Once upon a time, the name “Kylie Jenner” was synomous with internet success. Everything she did from makeup, to fashion, to music, or even her getting spotted at a restaurant would make it sell out instantly. She created a business once (allegedly) worth $1.2B, but now her business barely makes 2.5% of that a year… So what on earth happened? @Bee better made an AMAZING video about this that inspired this episode of the podcast. We did a deep dive into the Rise & Fall of the Kardashian and Jenner empires and what we found shocked us…

#kyliejenner #kardashians #kyliecosmetics #videoessay #marketing101 #socialmediamarketing #longervideo #marketingnotiktok

♬ original sound – Nicky

In a video entitled, ‘The Disastrous Demise Of Kylie Cosmetics’, he pointed towards Jenner’s recent rapid launch of side hustles, including a line of canned vodka cocktails, and a New York Post story that claims the youngest Jenner is struggling to sell her Beverly Hills mansion and has reduced the asking price considerably. Reardon also notes a correlation between Jenner’s admission of lip filler and plastic surgery and a decline in Kylie Cosmetics sales. According to Statista, in 2017, the brand’s revenue was $68.7 million (£59 million). Fast forward five years, and last year Kylie Cosmetics made less than half that amount.

A similar flop occurred in January 2024 when Kim Kardashian announced the re-launch of her KKW Beauty make-up line, which in its new iteration is now part of her overarching beauty offering, SKKN By Kim. SKKN BY KIM Makeup (try saying that in a hurry), comprises similar iterations of the matte lipsticks, lip liners and eyeshadow palettes that made her first make-up brand a household name for fans of the star. Her goal, Kardashian said in a statement, was to ‘create universally-flattering cosmetic essentials.’ On the same day that Kim’s new make-up launch was announced, Jenner also unveiled a new foundation launch under her own beauty brand, Kylie Cosmetics. Is anybody else having a case of déjà vu?

courtesy of Kim Kardashian via Instagram

The internet has surmised that the problem with the pair’s most recent attempts to build upon the two sister’s existing brand umbrellas is that, culturally, we have reached peak Kardashian. ‘We’re bored,’ Emily Chapps, Digital Lead at MØRNING, tells ELLE UK. ‘There are only so many times that you can invent the wheel. Sure, Skims is a success since the product is amazing and there was a market gap for good supportive underwear, but on aesthetic alone, Khy and a re-do of KKW make-up, which they’ve done before, will only appeal to their fandom and not the masses.’

Where is the demand for more Kardashian lipliners? Or Kardashian loungewear? Or Kardashian T-shirts?

It was mysteriously reported after Khy’s first launch that the brand made $1 million in sales in its first hour of launch, while fans of Kardashian’s were quick to note that four hours after SKKN’s launch in 2022, none of its products had sold out. In an age where fans are increasingly demanding transparency from stars, the Kardashian’s cloying attempt at creating and building brands that seemingly tell the truth through campaigns that appear to celebrate diversity and individuality is cringe-worthy. Where is the demand for more Kardashian lipliners? Or Kardashian loungewear? Or Kardashian T-shirts? Their attempts at pivoting their brands are, in fact, attempts at gripping on tighter to the relevance they once had a firm grasp on. The question at the heart of the issue might not be SKKN or SKKN BY KIM Makeup, and it might not be Khy, but it is most certainly why.

‘In reality they are just now warming up for the sequel,’ adds Shadeh Kavousian, Creative Strategy Lead at MØRNING. ‘You know her name, it’s Northie.’