Kim Kardashian's Skims pulls $148 advent calendar and offers refunds

Skims, the shapewear and loungewear brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian, has pulled its $148 holiday advent calendar from its website and offered every buyer a refund or store credit after shoppers mocked its contents online, Bloomberg reported in The Business of Fashion on Monday.

The episode comes as Skims tries to grow well beyond shapewear. The company plans to move into beauty, which Kardashian has pledged will arrive next year, and it works with Nike and has collaborations with the North Face and Fendi, according to the Bloomberg report. Bloomberg called the calendar a stumble for the company.

The calendar promised 12 days of small surprises and was listed on the Skims site as an accessories advent calendar, NBC News reported. The contents included key chains, hair ties and scrunchies, clips, bobby pins and a compact mirror. The BBC listed the full run: a tartan teddy bear key chain on day one, hair ties on three of the days, Skims logo hair clips on three more, a squishy ornament, beige elastic bands, a comb key chain, another key chain and a furry compact mirror key chain to finish.

Content creator Kayla Ryan posted a TikTok over the weekend unboxing the calendar, and the video has been viewed tens of millions of times, The New York Times reported. Her mood fell with each box as she unwrapped hair ties, scrunchies and pink bobby pins. "We might be on track for the worst advent calendar I’ve ever opened, and we’re only on No. 4," she said in the video. Ryan, who paid for the calendar, told the Times she had hoped for something like a phone case or cute socks, and said the items were the kind she could have found at a dollar store.

Other buyers piled on across TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and Threads. One Threads user wrote that Skims had people paying $150 for things that belong in a junk drawer, and another argued the box was not worth $20, People reported. Many said the items looked like something from a dollar store, sold for a fraction of the price. One TikTok account told viewers the box looked like things Kardashian had cleared out of her bedside table, and some users filmed themselves pulling odds and ends from under their own sofas, claiming to have made the calendar by accident, the BBC reported.

The company removed the calendar from its website, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg, and sent a note to buyers apologizing that the product had not met their expectations. Shoppers who return the calendar get a full refund, and those who keep it get store credit.

A spokesperson acknowledged in a statement shared with TODAY.com that for some buyers the calendar fell short, and said the company had personally contacted every buyer and "offered them a choice of a full refund or a SKIMS credit to put towards other products". People magazine said it had contacted a representative for Kardashian and had not heard back. The spokesperson added that customer feedback would directly shape how Skims approaches future releases.

In Britain, the BBC put the price at about 110 pounds. The calendar had sold out, with a waitlist, NBC reported.

For Skims, the next big launch is the beauty line Kardashian has promised for next year. More retail and brand coverage is in the Lifestyle & Fashion Sector.