Kylie Jenner could be a billionaire by her 21st birthday
Today, Kylie Jenner turns twenty years old. (It’s somewhat inaccurate to say that she celebrates her birthday today; she’s been celebrating for over a week.) In years past, we might have joined other notable outlets of celebrity journalism in teasing Kylie for her latest extravagance, or for the simple fact of her inexplicable, foot-heavy, near-deathless relationship with Tyga.
But all teasing of Kylie Jenner, whether good-natured or malicious, for now seems much more hollow than it used to, because today is also the day that we all got an honest glimpse at how goddamn wealthy Kylie Jenner truly is.
The Women’s Wear Daily article that has Kris Jenner so ebullient reports that Kylie’s cosmetics company–not her entire net worth, mind you, just her cosmetics company–”has done $420 million in retail sales–in just 18 months.” WWD is a respected trade publication, and Kris Jenner, who revealed those numbers herself, also provided receipts; as the article also notes, this was also “the first time the Jenners have disclosed the scale of Kylie’s business.”
By comparison, Tom Ford Beauty (owned by Estée Lauder) needed a decade to hit the $500 million mark, and Bobbi Brown (which Lauder also owns) only hit $1 billion in sales after a quarter-century. Kylie, meanwhile, projects a 25% increase in sales for 2017, which would mean total revenue of $386 million for the year.
So, if everything stays rosy for the youngest Jenner’s latest brand, her oft-mocked lip kits will be a billion-dollar business by 2022. But Kylie has other irons in the fashion fire. Let’s not forget the 2016 report that suggested Kylie and Kendall Jenner’s swimsuit line could easily net $500 million in sales within the next few years, based on the amount that Victoria’s Secret was making on swimwear before pulling out of that market unexpectedly and leaving room for the Jenners’ alliance with Topshop.
We already knew that Kendall’s net worth had been almost doubling every year for the past two or three, thanks to her increasingly lucrative modeling career. And we further knew that her success as a model was based in large part on her huge social media following: a built-in fanbase means the model can also be the advertising agency and the advertisement. But now we have definitive proof that Kylie Jenner, who is all three of those things and the company creating the need for them, has done Kendall one exponential step better.
(Photo credits: Kylie Jenner via Instagram)
