From Dash Boutique to Kardashian Beauty, here is a list of Kardashian businesses that “krashed” and burned!
As of this year, the Kardashian-Jenner clan has a collective net worth of US$2.5 billion, with Kim Kardashian being the richest of them all with US$1.4 billion to her name. A good part of the Kardashian-Jenner fortune comes from their businesses, like SKIMS, Kylie Cosmetics, SKKN by Kim and Good American, to name a few.
But things weren’t always so easy for the Kardashian-Jenner family, their path to business success has been lined with a handful of failures. Here is a list of all of their miscarried and abandoned businesses that you probably don’t know about.
Dash Boutique
Dash Boutique was a high-end clothing and accessory store that was started by Kim, Kourtney and Khloé in 2006 in Calabasas, California. This was a year before the launch of their reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians. As the show and hence the Kardashians became famous, they opened other branches in Los Angeles, Miami and New York.
The success of the show even led to the creation of a separate reality TV series Dash Dolls, which followed the day-to-day of the employees working at one of the Dash Boutique stores. However, by 2016, the rent for the New York store was getting too high, and it was subsequently shut down. By 2018, all stores were closed, with Kim making a statement that they took this decision to focus more on their own brands and also on their families.
The Kardashian Kard
In 2010, the Kardashians launched “The Kardashian Kard”, a prepaid MasterCard debit card with the Kardashians featured on it. The card was meant to be used by children but was far too expensive for them to afford.
It would cost the kids (or rather, their parents) US$99.95 just to use the card for 12 months. This included a one-time purchase charge of US$9.95, monthly fees at US$7.95 per month and a preloaded deposit of US$5. There was also a US$1.50 domestic ATM withdrawal charge on top of standard ATM fees, a US$1 fee on topping up the card, another US$1 cost to speak to the operator if you had questions about the card……the list of these exorbitant charges went on.
The fees for the card seemed so sketchy and predatory (particularly because it was marketed to kids) that the then Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter to the card issuer, University National Bank, raising doubts about its legality. With legal concerns being raised about the “Kard”, the Kardashians shut the whole project down, within less than a month of launch.
Kardashian Khaos
In 2011, the Kardashians opened a souvenir store called Kardashian Khaos at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Here, their fans could grab keychains, beach towels and t-shirts with the Kardashians’ faces on them.
Throughout its run, the Kardashians would give special appearances at the store to meet with their fans. Unfortunately, the store didn’t last too long and came to a close in 2014 due to a slump in sales—which makes sense when you consider the fact that they were selling bottled water for US$8. At the end of its run, the store was selling products for half their price just to break even.
Kardashian Beauty
In 2012, Kim, Khloé and Kourtney launched an Ulta-exclusive makeup line called Khroma Beauty, which was pulled from the shelves fairly quickly due to multiple copyright infringement lawsuits. These lawsuits were filed by Los Angeles-based beauty company Chroma Beauty and Florida-based company Kroma Beauty who believed that the name of the makeup brand was too similar to their businesses.
They then renamed Khroma Beauty to Kardashian Beauty, which actually picked up some steam from selling hairstyling products. Kardashian Beauty’s 3-in-1 Hairstyling Iron even earned an Allure Best of Beauty Award in 2015. However, by 2016, the brand was again in hot water when the Kardashians were sued by Hillair Capital Management (which had bought out the former owners of Kardashian beauty, Boldface) for not promoting the beauty brand. According to Hillair, the sisters were not happy with the terms of the deal between Boldface and the new management and had thus given up on it. Without their influence, the brand simply vanished from the shelves, leading to its eventual demise.
Of course, there are many other projects they embarked on, like their mobile apps—“Kim Kardashian: Hollywood”, “Kimoji” and “Kendall & Kylie”—and books—Kim’s Selfish and Kendall and Kylie’s Rebels: City Of Indra: The Story Of Lex And Livia—which also did not work out. Nevertheless, the Kardashians have taught us to always keep trying no matter how many times we fail.
When the Kardashians did an interview with Variety magazine earlier this year, Kim’s advice for women who want to succeed in business was “get your f***ing ass up and work”. While this advice was originally met with flak on social media, Kim later clarified that she meant you have to really work hard for your business to succeed. Which, as you can probably already see from the multiple failed ventures we discussed throughout this article, she clearly has.
While the social media stardom she attained from the Kardashians’ reality TV show has been a prominent factor in her entrepreneurial success, working hard, in spite of failures, is a piece of advice we can all benefit from.
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Header image courtesy of The Kardashians (2022)’s IMDB page.
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