Kim Kardashian’s career can be mapped by a series of nudes: the leaked tape that turned her into a national sex symbol; the bathroom selfie that brought her into the feminist discourse around “empowerment;” and now, in her mogul phase, comes her eponymous makeup collection, KKW Beauty, a line of contour kits, highlighters, and flesh-colored lipsticks that render her history of nudity symbolic. We know that Kim Kardashian’s skin is one of the most profitable enterprises going these days — who wouldn’t want to buy the promise of being able to wear a version of it for herself?
Kim has built an empire on the power of her body, and she’s done it so effectively that she doesn’t have to sell it to us directly anymore. Kim’s career — and the promise of KKW Beauty — is that we, too, can finally learn the secret of the magic trick that turns nudity into cash, which allows someone who has been naked in front of us for a full decade now to still seem mysterious, and ultimately untouchable.
