On August 5 2026, Reliance Brands Limited and SKIMS announced an exclusive partnership to bring the brand to India, with first stores opening in Delhi and Mumbai. On the surface, the announcement follows a familiar pattern. A global brand enters a new market, a local retail powerhouse handles distribution and everyone shakes hands and issues a press release. Look closer, however, and the SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands is worth considerably more attention than a standard market entry story, because the decisions embedded in it carry important lessons for every global premium and luxury brand currently weighing its India options.
SKIMS is one of the most commercially successful direct-to-consumer brands of the past decade. Co-founded by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede in 2019, the brand reached a $5 billion valuation following a $225 million Series D funding round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives in November 2025. It has expanded into menswear, collaborated with Nike on the NikeSKIMS collection, and built a global retail footprint that includes London, Dubai, Hong Kong and Seoul alongside its core US business. The India announcement on August 5 is its most significant international move to date. And the fact that it arrived through Reliance Brands is the most strategically interesting part of the story.
Why the SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands matters beyond the headline
To appreciate why the SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands carries so much significance, it helps to understand what Reliance Brands actually is. Most international coverage of this deal focused on SKIMS and Kim Kardashian. The more instructive story centres on Reliance Brands Limited, which is arguably the most important luxury and premium retail infrastructure company in India and one of the most underreported forces in Asian luxury market development.
Reliance Brands Limited operates across 1,855 retail doors in India. Its portfolio includes Armani Exchange, Balenciaga, Burberry, Coach, Fenty Beauty, Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors, Stella McCartney, Tiffany & Co., Valentino, Versace and Zegna, alongside Indian designer labels and, with the August 5 announcement, SKIMS. When Isha Ambani, Director of Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, said the company was “proud to introduce SKIMS to India and to build it here for the long term,” she was speaking on behalf of an organisation that has built more global luxury brands in the Indian market than any other single entity.
The SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands is therefore the story of how serious global brands approach India in 2026. Rather than setting up a standalone subsidiary and learning the market from scratch, the most strategically sophisticated brands are choosing to partner with the firm that has already done that work across dozens of brands over two decades.
What India actually represents for premium and luxury brands right now
The timing of the SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands reflects a very deliberate reading of where global market opportunity sits in 2026.
Deloitte’s 2026 Global Powers of Luxury report identifies India as the fourth-largest growth engine for luxury globally, with an 11.9 percent growth rate. Bain’s June 2026 luxury market report found that while Europe and the Americas were the dominant stories in overall luxury spending, India was among the markets where the structural fundamentals, a growing upper-middle class, rising disposable incomes and increasing appetite for international brands among younger consumers, were most reliably pointing in one direction.
The demographic argument for India is now extremely well documented. What receives less attention is the structural argument. India’s organised retail sector has expanded significantly over the past five years. E-commerce infrastructure has matured rapidly. And the concentration of premium consumer spending in a small number of major urban markets, primarily Delhi and Mumbai, makes initial market entry considerably more tractable than the country’s overall scale might suggest.
All of this explains why SKIMS chose India as its next major international move. The India expansion comes following recent openings in London and Dubai, with Hong Kong and Seoul to follow, and marks SKIMS’ entry into one of the world’s fastest-growing luxury and premium consumer markets. SKIMS is building a global retail footprint in a specific sequence: established luxury markets first, high-growth emerging markets next. India sits at the top of the second category.
Why every global brand should be studying the Reliance Brands model closely
The most strategically instructive aspect of the SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands is the partnership model itself. This is where the story moves beyond SKIMS and becomes directly relevant to any global brand thinking seriously about India.
Building a brand in India from the ground up requires navigating a specific and complex retail landscape. Consumer preferences vary significantly across cities and income bands. Regulatory requirements around foreign direct investment in retail have historically required careful navigation. And building the kind of brand awareness and consumer trust that drives premium retail performance takes time and local knowledge that most global brands arrive without.
What Reliance Brands offers is a well-tested route through all of those challenges. Jens Grede, Co-Founder and CEO of SKIMS, described Reliance Brands’ experience in building international fashion labels in India as the defining reason for the partnership. That is a carefully considered statement with a great deal of strategic logic behind it. SKIMS is sourcing India market expertise from the organisation best positioned to provide it, rather than attempting to build that expertise internally from a standing start.
This is the model that Balenciaga, Valentino, Stella McCartney and many other global brands have already adopted. They entered India through Reliance Brands because building the infrastructure independently would have taken longer, cost more, and carried significantly higher risk of misjudging a market that consistently rewards deep local knowledge.
For any global brand currently assessing an India strategy, the SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands is the clearest recent signal that the partnership route is the leading approach for brands that are serious about getting India right.
What Isha Ambani’s involvement tells about the strategic weight of this deal
It is worth noting that Isha Ambani, Director of Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, personally provided the lead quote for the SKIMS India launch announcement. “SKIMS has changed how the world thinks about shape, comfort and inclusivity, and it speaks directly to a new generation of Indian consumers who want fashion that is both aspirational and made for them,” said Isha Ambani. “We are proud to introduce SKIMS to India and to build it here for the long term.”
Isha Ambani provides personal quotes selectively, and her direct involvement in the announcement signals that SKIMS is a priority addition to the Reliance Brands portfolio rather than a routine brand acquisition. The specific phrasing “build it here for the long term” is equally telling. Reliance Brands operates as a brand builder rather than a passive distributor. That means sustained investment in marketing, retail experience, community building and consumer education over years rather than quarters.
For SKIMS, a partner with that level of commitment and market depth is worth considerably more than a conventional distribution arrangement. For India’s premium consumer, it means the SKIMS experience in Delhi and Mumbai will arrive fully considered and locally calibrated rather than imported wholesale from a template built for a different market.
What this means for the brands still assessing India from the outside
The SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands extends an already impressive list of major global premium and lifestyle brands that have chosen India through this route. Armani, Balenciaga, Burberry, Coach, Fenty, Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors, Stella McCartney, Tiffany & Co., Valentino, Versace, Zegna and now SKIMS. That portfolio reads like the guest list of a major international fashion week, and it grows more compelling with every addition.
The brands that have chosen to wait, treating India as a market to evaluate rather than a market to enter, are increasingly the outliers. The pace at which serious brands are committing is accelerating, and the window in which being early in India represents a significant competitive advantage is a finite one.
The SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands adds one more clear and specific data point to a trend that has been building for several years. India is a market where the most strategically important decisions are being made right now, and the brands moving with confidence and the right partners are building advantages that will compound over time.
Read next on The Pillar Edit: Case Study: How Jaipur Rugs is scaling Indian craft from Tokyo to Milan, the story of how one Indian brand built the global credibility that most international brands spend years trying to earn in India.
(Image credit: skims.com)
FAQ
How big is India's luxury and premium market in 2026?
According to Deloitte’s 2026 Global Powers of Luxury report, India is the fourth-largest growth engine for luxury globally with an 11.9 percent growth rate. Bain’s June 2026 luxury report identifies India among the markets with the most reliable structural growth fundamentals, driven by a growing upper-middle class, rising disposable incomes and increasing appetite for international brands among younger consumers.
Where are SKIMS stores opening in India?
The first SKIMS stores in India are opening in Delhi and Mumbai. Reliance Brands will also operate SKIMS across digital channels in India. This follows SKIMS’ recent global retail expansion into London and Dubai, with Hong Kong and Seoul to follow.
What is the SKIMS India launch through Reliance Brands?
On August 5 2026, Reliance Brands Limited and SKIMS announced an exclusive partnership to bring SKIMS to India. Under the agreement, Reliance Brands will operate SKIMS across physical and digital channels in India, with first stores opening in Delhi and Mumbai. SKIMS is co-founded by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede and is known for its women’s shapewear, underwear and loungewear, as well as its menswear line and the NikeSKIMS collaboration with Nike.
