Kendall and Kylie Jenner Launched Their Topshop Lingerie Collection in an Uncharacteristically Quiet Fashion
Kendall and Kylie Jenner aren’t usually shy about self promotion on social media. (After all, their family has built a career out of it.) But when their new collection with Topshop dropped today, there wasn’t as much as a tweet or post about it from either of the sisters.
It’s all the more notable that the Kendall + Kylie lingerie collaboration is inspired by the duo’s own style. Indeed, the 30-plus pieces of intimates they released look like they could have been sourced from Kendall and Kylie’s closets. They’re full of lace, velvet, jersey and mesh takes on bras, bodysuits and bottoms, including a full on mesh catsuit for $160 and a cropped mesh turtleneck for $90 that’s reminiscent of the one Kendall paired ripped jeans with while out during Paris Fashion Week, which Lorde later channeled at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards.
Like Kendall’s take on the mesh turtleneck, some of the Kendall + Kylie lingerie pieces are styled to be fully shown, rather than just worn underneath clothes. “Beautiful lingerie shouldn’t be completely hidden under clothes anymore,” reads a quote from Kendall on Topshop’s website. In the promotional images, she shows exactly that, wearing a millennial pink velvet and mesh bra with a denim jacket and jeans.
Perhaps Kendall and Kylie are staying quiet because of recent controversies. Their last collection included a Chinese takeout bag that bared a striking resemblance to one from Kate Spade’s Fall 2014 collection, which was also an odd move for a brand that has a history of being accused of cultural appropriation and plagiarism. This past summer, Kendall and Kylie also put their faces on t-shirts that used the likeness of artists like The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Ozzy Osbourne without permission. Jenner opened up about another questionable business decision she made, recently on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, referencing her controversial Pepsi ad. “I was so stuck and I really didn’t know what to do, so I completely shut down,” she said, before adding. “I just felt so f-cking stupid. The fact that I would hurt or offend other people was not the intent, and that is what got me the most.”
A Celebration of Kylie Jenner’s 20 Years of Not Letting the Critics Get Her Down
In 2011, Tyga and Kylie first met at Kendall Jenner’s Sweet Sixteen, where the rapper performed. Kylie was 14 at the time. Three years later, Tyga ended his engagement with Blac Chyna, the mother of his son King Cairo—and shortly after, began appearing on Kylie’s Instagram, prompting rumors they were dating. Both Kylie and Tyga denied the relationship—though it was the subject of a line in Drake’s “6 p.m. in New York” and the topic of some scathing words from Amber Rose—until the following year, when Kanye West let slip on The Breakfast Club. The gist of the controversy: Kylie and Tyga’s wide age gap, and the appearance that he left Blac Chyna for a teenager.
After Kylie launched Kylie Cosmetics with her eponymous lip kits, some beauty bloggers noted distinct similarities to ColourPop’s far more affordable range; parent company Seed Cosmetics later confirmed it manufactured both ColourPop and Kylie Cosmetics.
Kylie Cosmetics has been at the center of many of its founder’s controversies over the past two years—both because of the beauty brand itself, and because it has presented Kylie with a massive platform. For the brand’s Holiday 2016 campaign, which debuted in September, it released an image of gold-painted fingers framing a deep, cranberry lip—mirroring almost exactly an image by makeup artist Vlada Haggerty. Haggerty filed a suit against Kylie Cosmetics, but the feud was resolved before any court battle began.
Considering the previous Tyga drama, someone might have advised Kylie that naming one of her new blushes “Barely Legal” might not be the best plan.
Earlier this year, Kylie, one of the celebrity faces of Puma (like Rihanna, and like The Weeknd), appeared in a campaign in which she was depicted mid-running stride, in one image, and springing up into the air as if on a trampoline, in another. Just as her sister Kendall before her was criticized for appearing in a ballet-themed Vogue España editorial, Kylie was criticized for ostensibly taking the place of a real athlete in the campaign. Complaints about her running form—her feet not flexed properly, her knees not at the right angle—abounded, and then subsided in time for Kylie to appear in another campaign several months later.
Just after her brother Rob Kardashian was embroiled in his own controversy with ex-girlfriend Blac Chyna (the same Blac Chyna who was once engaged to Tyga), Kylie tapped her brother, sock entrepreneur and founder of Arthur George, to collaborate with Kylie Cosmetics. Many questioned the timing of the collaboration, as it was unveiled just after Rob had unleashed an Instagram tirade, including several graphic photos (that Chyna had not consented to be released), against his former girlfriend.
In the midst of building a beauty empire, Kylie also manages to balance collaborating with her elder sister Kendall on their Kendall + Kylie clothing label. As part of the brand’s most recent drop, the sisters debuted new “vintage” merch, featuring iconic images of the likes of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. with Kendall and Kylie’s own likenesses splashed over the front. The families and estates of the late rappers, as well as other artists featured in the collection, immediately struck back—and the tees were promptly pulled from Kendall + Kylie. (Since then, Kendall + Kylie has been struck by several lawsuits.)
Watch: Kendall Jenner Gets Real, “I’m Weird, I Love My Tits Being Out”
