Creating Cultural Moments | Kim Kardashian West & Kris Jenner | #BoFWest

hi everybody what a beautiful day it is beautiful the Sun was beating down on people it's still beating down on a few people's faces over there but we're so happy to be here in Los Angeles to have this conversation with you and I want the first time I'm seeing my store you guys oh yeah it's gonna be right k'kaw Beauty Papa she's coming but I want to have a serious conversation with the two of you today because I think very often all of the work that you're you've been doing isn't taken seriously so I've I've thought yeah well I just think people are dismissive of you know reality television and social media and selfies and you know they used to be I don't think that's the case anymore I will argue with you okay so tell me why I just think that after 50 we start filming season 16 next week and we've had maybe 15 spin-offs oh that's like 12 years on the air I think after that long they kind of you know start to respect it Chris what do you think I think that it's become part of just in many different ways with from the influencers that are here today and the way that social media platforms are perceived it's a huge part of our culture and I think it is taken very seriously and it's a huge part of the way businesses run today I mean I get that it wasn't though yeah I do get that was a time but people are still skeptical you know they understand the reach they understand the influence but I think what's you know what's most remarkable boat you know what I've learned in the last few conversations that you and I have had Kim is that you know you've taken that influence in region you're really building a business you know and that's I think the ability to interact directly with your customers and to like get feedback from them and listen to them that that is a new kind of business yes for sure so let's talk about the business because one of the things I wanted to hear from you is how how do you think your Beauty business is different from the traditional beauty businesses the ones there are many of them are run by middle-aged white men they don't necessarily have you know broad definitions of beauty and they don't necessarily have the direct relationship with the customer how do you think your business is different from the like the brands that have been around forever well I think definitely with social media you can have a direct-to-consumer business and if you market yourself the right way and promote it the right way then you could have a really successful business something that I don't think people assumed was even possible five years ago what about the notion of what beauty is right so like sometimes when I'm flipping through a fashion magazine even now you flip through and there's almost a formula about the way these brands communicate you know how does your brand communicate differently from say the traditional in terms of the image it projects well I don't really look at the traditional forms of what I'm seeing in magazines I just kind of do what I want to do and I've always been really confident in the image that I want to put out there whether it's I mean when you have your own business and you really 100% control it you can choose the photographer and the images and the look and you know every last detail that you want to do so when you have your own business I mean that's just what I've done I've always done what's felt right what feels good not really worried about what I think the consumer wants but instead kind of guide them with what I want and I think if you have your own business and it's really run by social media you can have the power to do that some people say you've also influenced the ideals of beauty right so if well yeah I feel like you know that the notion even in back to that formula and the magazine's it's the same kind of woman you know you're projecting a different image of beauty people say how do you respond to that I mean that's really exciting to me and flattering because even though I'm not planning that out I mean I I remember when I was growing up the kinds of women that I looked at and I looked up to I mean when Salma Hayek came on the scene it was like over I was so excited there was someone that I felt like even though we're not the same nationality but I was I looked similar to her and that was someone that I would go to for beauty advice just I remember at the time it was prom and I wanted to figure out what hairstyle I wanted so I would look at her red carpet looks so I'm just proud that there's such a diverse language and beauty and in my campaigns I use so many different women just you know hopefully that there's someone out there that looks like one of them and wants to emulate that look or get some beauty tips and advice from something that maybe they would see in one of my campaigns yeah the the beauty tips and advice are also linked to the types of products you're selling so you launched with contouring kits right and we had an educational session where I can't explain to me what contouring is but it's it's that kind of product focus also that's different instead of launching with you know a whole smithereen of different products and products that were quite similar to what you can get elsewhere you launched with a kit how did how do you make that kind of product decision I knew from the start that I always no matter what my look is whether I'm doing a no makeup look or a really heavy glam look contour was just constant so that for sure was just the first product that I wanted to launch with and I learned from my sister Kylie that she launched just lips in her Kylie cosmetics and that did really well for her and I felt like my makeup artist Mario and I had worked so long creating so many different looks for the past like 10 years but contour was always constant so for me I took I learned from my little sister to just maybe start with one product and that that seemed to really work and just building off of that it worked so well that you sold over 300,000 you it's of your contouring kits I think in the first 24 hours turning over 14 million dollars right so I couldn't think when I heard that I couldn't think of a business that's launching on its first day that makes that much money how how do you think about how much to produce like how did you come up with the number 300,000 and how does that how has that changed over time as you've picked up on how demand works for your products it definitely is a learning process and I learned from when Kylie and I launched our lip together we had we have a lip collab and I gauged it off of those numbers so I was a bit more conservative than those numbers just to test it because contour and teaching people how to contour and what it is and getting your your correct shade you do have to educate a lot so it was tricky but when you have a business that's all online it is tricky it is risky it is difficult to gauge that and we're still always gauging that but when a product sells out it's the most gratifying feeling in the world and on launch days me and the team were on the computer checking all the numbers seeing what's selling and it's so much fun do you ever regret not ordering more though when it sells out or a scarcity part you know with the whole drops model maybe this is from like Kanye and easy and the way that whole street wear market works but they you know they put out a little bit of product and it sells out people want it more does it is there like that kind of psychology in the thinking not as much with makeup just because I always want people to be able to get it but I think it has helped you just don't want to over order and I think we've so far done a good job at gauging the perfect amount I mean obviously it's never gonna be perfect but it's it's exciting when it sells out and then I always try to reorder it quickly unless it's really just an exclusive product like with my fragrances sometimes I won't be reordering that again so that's because you only want it to be available once yeah I mean I had these like Valentine hearts and I just wanted them for Valentine's Day and it was no real need to live on the site so my my funner products that are like holiday based I think we'll just be exclusive just for that time period okay so the other thing that I'm really curious about is how the two of you actually work together so you know there is this impression out in the world that you know you Chris are this behind-the-scenes mastermind you know calculating and knowing exactly what to do to get attention you know you have this you know vested where you got all that credit from it's like well is it I remove a stir mine now okay it's me telling my sisters what to do today listen not today what what so how do you see it Chris like you work with all your kids on their different endeavors and they're all doing well in different areas like how do you see your role you're not involved in the day-to-day but you're involved in some way or another when how do you describe what you do well I'm definitely involved in the day-to-day because we work together every single day we work on if we're not filming Keeping Up with the Kardashians we're working on Kim's fragrance and makeup and Kylie's brands and it goes on and on but I think that the girls are also creative and they know exactly what they want and the last thing that they want to hear from me is what a lipstick you know component would look like so I think for me my job is really to lead in the direction of where their passion is how to figure out what a business might look like help get it off the ground help keep it running with a great team behind me and let them do their creative thing and I mean Kim is the queen of social media and she's pretty much taught the rest of us in my family how it's done whether it's you know solving a crisis putting out a fire or simply I remember when there was just Twitter and that's all I knew about there was an Instagram there was an all these other social media platforms and Kim was launching a fragrance and she went on Twitter and posted two pictures of a fragrance bottle that was black and pink and she said to her fans do you guys like the light pink or do you like the dark pink and I was like what are you doing you're asking on Twitter how to make a perfume bottle and she goes yeah and she had millions and millions of responses and picked the bottle that her fans liked and that fragrance sold out in minutes because she you know did that and there wasn't it wasn't even an EECOM product it was in stores for a minute and people were lining up to get it because they felt like they had been a part of that process so Kim teaches me something about EECOM and social media every day but my job is really to keep it all going keep the train running so when you're keeping the train running like what's your do you have like a business philosophy or like a an approach that you pass on to the to the girls saying like 'ok this is how you should think about building a business well i think i mean my business philosophy to anyone has always been if someone says no you're talking to the wrong person so just never give up and if you have an idea and you feel passionate about you know doing that as a business and that's what you want to do for the you know really make a commitment then let's go figure out how to do it let's roll up our sleeves and find somebody that shares the same joy I mean it really gives me incredible joy to be able to find these different things that the girls like to do and go out there and figure out a way to do it it's it's very very exciting mom runs a really tight ship so working for Kris Jenner is a really difficult thing like I don't know like I could do it what's the most difficult thing about it she just is really demanding she wakes up at 4:30 in the morning and she ends her day at about 6 p.m. with a glass of wine so you have to get everything in between 4:30 and 6:00 p.m. or she's not having it she's just really tough okay how how did you how did you start becoming a manager in the first place I mean whoa who was the first person you managed and how did that happen well the first person I managed was in 1990 I guess and that was Bruce Jenner okay and I did that because I had to figure out a way to feed my kids so you know and make a living and pay the rent and so it was a necessity and I figured it out really fast because there were a lot of kids and what were you doing with with Bruce at the time he was he had some experience and doing motivational speaking and so I said you know I think this would be a great way for you to go out and get back out there and kind of work on your speech write a book and in those days there was no there was barely I barely had a computer we were do we were using a typewriter so we got we did press kits and made copies like 7,000 by hand and sent them to every single speakers bureau in the country and waited for the phone to ring right and it worked so we started and so the next war that evolved into becoming a manager just managing the whole process managing the speaking engagements managing you know a lot of other several other people and then as my kids got older and we started doing our television show it just exploded that way so another thing that strike me you you you mentioned Kylie earlier but so you have these girls they're all doing their own thing what if what if they get into competing categories like how do you how do you guys I know you're so Kylie does lip kits and you did the contouring kits like one day is there a collision where you're doing the same products or do you sit around a table saying okay I'm gonna do this stuff and you're gonna do this stuff because it all seems very well we do map it out we do have meeting suite we don't have the wrote about formulas and specific products and packaging but if like I just launched lipsticks and so she has lipstick so we make sure that the formulas are completely authentic to me and her formulas are authentic to her and we run them like they're two totally separate businesses but we do have communication over our time line and our launches so nothing is too close and we make sure that our formulas are nothing alike so that we just never run into that problem and if there's something that we really both had our eyes set on we would collab and do it together okay I think to that one business doesn't cannibalize the other at all and they have two completely different fan bases which is very it's interesting right what about that road map you mentioned so when you say there's a road map Chris what does that road map look I'm just really curious how because back to the being the mastermind like how does that all work well it's it's it's a document that's that lists everything the girls are going to do for example for the rest of the year in products master document and and we add to it and you know subtract from it and make sure that one thing doesn't you know get in the way of another and that it makes sense and you know you really have to put some some you know heavy lifting into exactly how you're gonna roll things out and what makes sense for each girl's brand and who's doing what and you know it's a daily conversation it's a it's a you know a big deal because they have so many things going on so every day I'll come to work and I feel like I'm working for a different company or a different brand it depends on what needs to be done but I think for me and dealing what with what we deal with internally as a family we have to have a spreadsheet basically on who's doing what when so it's all smooth whiteboards all over the office really yeah I'd love to see those they must be quite expensive guitars you did great they're tough yeah you do a lot of different stuff what happens when we've all been privy to the disagreements that sometimes crop up in a family right what happens when those kinds of disagreements spill over into the business so you know really happened if it is we do always call my mom and then we yell at her and make her handle it yeah I'm always putting out fires I'm like a fireman that was one of my interesting with a really big extinguisher well so what's the biggest fire you put out recently that you know you talked earlier but I say management what's what's the what's the most kind of we haven't really had a business fire we really haven't we've really agreed I think the business is for the girls very creative and I think they have a lot of fun so it's not the kind of thing where they're not competitive with each other in that way so I think they enjoy you know the conversations and just all the stuff that goes along with building their brands and they really are excited about it but probably the biggest conflict we've had recently as just the girls internally which that stuff that you guys were filming when we were filming last time brutal you'll have to tune in and watch keeping up the first fight of the Christmas it's usually has to do with someone being late and disrespectful and the sisters that work a little bit more than the other sisters should get it was a major blowout let me just tell you just be on time when we have things to do so when a blowout like that happens and I'm being serious like you're all working you have this master plan you work together there's the spreadsheet like how do you get it all back so you're aligned and happy again I think it helps that they're related I think that's the the secret sauce is that it's forgotten in ten minutes like they'll have a blowout this last fight that she was talking about though it is like strung out over the first three episodes of our next season that airs next month nice little plug there yeah but when I think about it I do get really mad it's basically just like people being disrespectful oh there's a one thing that really gets me okay I guess we'll all have to to know what the blow is about I think it's lucky though that that we are family and that we are so close and there's a lot of love there because if you were behaving like this with non family members that would be a little bit more difficult to get over I'd say me behaving like this I talked about Courtney behaving like that all right okay we'll get to it in the car getting some real the other thing that being a Kardashian means is having to deal with the constant media cycle there's stuff that will happen somewhere with someone that you're related to that someone you're not related to it could be with Kanye it could be with you know an ex of one of your sisters something happens and the whole Kardashian brand is all over the internet and it's like constant cycle of news how does that sync up with trying to build a brand that's also got Kardashian in it like how do you you know you're building this like aspirational beauty brand and then there's like all this Kardashian stuff all over the internet and you know there's all a backlash about something well in these times there's backlash if you sneeze so I think we diffuse there's backlash if anyone sneezes it's really it's gotten really out of hand but I think that the way my family and I have always dealt with everything is we know we have each other nothing else really matters so at the end of the day this could all go away and we we all have each other and we're confident in that so we're always gonna be who we are and if one of us is fighting with you know a boyfriend or an ex or whatever the examples you were giving I mean we all know what it is like we all know we support each other and we love each other and a part of all of that craziness has given us the platform to have our brands right so I mean it seems like these days we just want to like lay low and stay out of the drama and focus on business but all of that stuff just comes along with it and we know that your mom said earlier that she learned from you how to manage a PR crisis on social media so can you teach us all or and if it applies to all of us if there's some PR crisis that happens what's your top tip for nipping it in the bud how do you deal with that it really depends on the situation because sometimes you have to speak up and you have to explain what it is because like these days if you tell a joke and you're in an interview but then it's written out on print it won't translate so sometimes there's those like moments where you have to explain yourself and then sometimes there's those moments when you just shouldn't explain yourself because if it gets twisted and it just isn't worth the explanation and it's just too like sometimes it's so much on your soul like all the nonsense and all the the negativity that there's definitely time and places when you need to set the record straight but then sometimes it's just not worth yet that energy you know what which situation is which can you give us an example of a situation where you knew you had to speak up and and and say something sometimes it's just a feeling yeah like my sister Kendall she was caught up in something that she didn't really have a lot of control over she wanted to speak out so badly and she was you know advised not to and I advised her to you know maybe on our show where you feel safe where you're doing you know just an interview where you can just pour your heart out and explain your situation oh my mom's gonna get mad at me if I bring it up just yeah a situation I mean so it just depends you know if you're it really is a feeling of when you should speak up and when you shouldn't okay a big part of the success she did the right thing right Chris just looked to you there yeah if she gave me those like daggers in your eyes she can't even see from the back of her head she's not even looking at me and this is that whole mastermind thing a big part of the success of course of the whole Kardashian phenomenon is the television show one day that show might not be around right like juice forever really yeah how North gets married how right she doesn't I used to say that about Kylie when she was like what it was she 10 used to say season 17 Kylie has a baby and we was like what is it that just happened see mastermind but could the businesses theoretically speaking in a in an imaginary world could the businesses continue without the television show oh I think so I think there's many examples of girls who are friends of my kids and Kim and everybody that did reality shows way before we did one and they had businesses that they developed five years after their show ended so I think it's you know I think it has something to do with their presence on social media and just the different things I think now with social media social media really is its own show you can have a business with or without being visible on TV but we love what we do we hope it continues for a long time when North gets married right no I don't think that all I don't think that'll fly with Kanye but you never know last question is and then I think we're going to take some questions from the audience so if you have a question or if you if you want to ask questions start thinking about it what does the future hold from here I mean I was you know quite moved by the by the recent intervention that you made in that prison reform situation you went to the White House I thought that was a really incredible way to use your reach but do you see you know you've gone from like reality star to social media sensation to you know beauty and entrepreneur to activist like if there's a plan like a master plan do you have an idea of where it's going next I really love what I do and I think the success that we had pardoning Alice the woman that was in prison was so deeply touching to my soul that I don't want to stop with just one person and I saw you sent out another tweet to the Governor of California above yes yeah yes and I there's you know some positive things happening with that that I'm excited about I was telling my mom you won't believe I just got home and I have like a stack of letters from prison really I have to start going through them but I mean I didn't plan on being an activist I just did something that I thought was the right thing to do and I felt like I had the resources to do it but the feeling that it gave me I I definitely want to see my life continuing in that area because that was just really satisfying well congratulations I thought it was a really powerful way to use your reach and a really important cause because obviously there's lots of lots of situations like that as we all know so we now have a few minutes only to take some questions so if you have a question please raise your hand I see one question in the back there please introduce yourself and don't give a speech ask a question thank you and then could we get the microphones over here please in the back there yep oh hi my name is Justin my question is they're having a family your career and personal relationships how do you guys all keep that how do you consistent I'll say if I'm I hope I'm saying that right really how do you guys keep it consistent where you have time for all of that and still have time to take care of yourself in the time being I hope that made sense I I think it's definitely a juggling act and a balance all the time and you do get you have to make time for yourself I know I often say to Kim she's gonna kill me for saying this but she will get a spray tan or a beauty treatment done at midnight like I look at her schedule and she'll do something like this and then she'll have meetings and she'll have a dinner and she's still going at two o'clock in the morning and then she gets up at 6:00 and gets her kids ready for school so or she gets up at 5:00 now and works out so she's doing what I used to do when I was her age and as you get older I'm 62 years old and I'm exhausted a lot making time for yourself you have to make time for yourself whether it's taking a few days away if you have kids it definitely is really crazy so but you also have to give time to them so hence the like midnight spray tans I'd rather do everything when they're sleeping but you just it's not even an option like you have to take time out for yourself no matter what you do or you will literally go crazy okay there was a question on the the side there yeah could you please stand sure well thank you for being here actually I came all the way from Paris to just like see you guys I have actually restraints yes we and I do I know a TV about anyhow I'm not gonna make a speech so but I had a question actually what I want to say Bravo because what you did for the fashion industry the o'the good but not good job but fashion you really broke a stereotype and you know what I'm talking about when you're talking about vogue when you're talking about being like the typical girl that you signed the 80s 90s and you did that you created a great relationship with God she great you know with all DV and you really made this road for different looking women beautiful women of course so what was how did you got into it what was like I'm sure it wasn't on purpose maybe it was but what meat you want to do that did you go yourself go in to see all the editorials or was it them that we're looking at you was a prepared can you tell us just a little bit about that yeah well I mean I always thought I had really good style until I met my husband and he told me that I had the worst style and so he was really nice about it and cleaned out my whole closet I probably had 250 pairs of shoes and when we were done cleaning it out I had two pairs left and I cried and I remember this like like yesterday the shoes were piled up on my floor from the floor to the ceiling and we went to the Laker game and we came back home and my closet was filled back up with all new stuff and we kept everything on your ball for you yes yes and like racks of clothes just designers I had never heard of before like Lanvin and Javan she and like I you know didn't know that then and I kept everything because it was like really sentimental to me and I and he had all these fashion books and Kareem Roth fields and like just all these books and wanted and said one day Kareem will style you and I was like yeah right I don't know who this is and you know now she's like one of my good friends and it's I I wanted to learn like I wasn't offended when he said that and when he did that he wanted to teach me and we kept a whole room of all my stuff on racks in case I felt like I wanted to go back there and wear some of that stuff but I went to Paris I started meeting with these people and no one would dress me at the beginning and we would finally get a little in and then Ricardo would dress me and he was the first person to really take a chance on me and he would teach me so much about the fits and cuts and how I should wear things and then I became really close with Olivier and none of the samples would fit me and so they started to design things that were more curvy and that would fit you know someone that had more my body type and that was like such a proud moment when he did like a whole collection that was really curvy with corsets and and so yeah it became a really great relationship and I've loved fashion ever since because I've loved learning so much about it and with that I have I think I have time for one more question so I'm the young woman in red there yeah thank you so much so you're great in discovering the new trends and beauty is a new fashion now so what's the next Beauty then I mean I think highlighter is really just having a big big moment for me I I kind of looked to my makeup artist like Mario to help me when I want to do something more different and fun like we have our palette and it has this bright electric blue color and that was really something that he picked that he felt would be a really trendy color and it is like everyone's wearing the blue eyeshadow right now I tend to love really neutrals and basics and just kind of bling it up with a little bit of highlighter so yeah I would say thank you for the top tip but now you know what beauty looks to be going for we've unfortunately run out of time and I want to thank Kim and Kris for joining us so please give them a big round of applause thank you

Channel: The Business of Fashion

Views: 329,987

Rating: 4.601707 out of 5

Keywords: Fashion Business, KKW Beauty, insider, The Kardashians, pop-up, The Business of Fashion, BoFWest, KKW, fashion, panel, reality television, interview, Kim Kardashian West, Kim Kardashian perfume, Kris Jenner, business, Luxury Fashion, Beauty, Imran Amed

Id: ZeKO7LQ_tjw

Length: 35min 12sec (2112 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 28 2018