Skims, the wildly popular clothing brand co-founded and launched by Kim Kardashian, has brought its swimwear collection to Europe for the first time ever.
The best-selling range of swimming costumes and bikinis is available to shop at the first-ever European Skims pop-up in London, as well as being stocked in Manchester.
Selfridges department stores in both the Trafford Centre and in the city centre will have an edit of the collection for customers to shop.
Down south, the Corner Shop at Selfridges London has become an immersive Skims experience, designed to replicate a Summer Los Angeles poolside oasis, down to the diving boards and palm trees.
Shoppers will even be able to grab custom Skims ice cream treats by Chin Chin Labs while they browse.
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It’s been designed in partnership with the brand’s long-time collaborator, Willo Perron of Perron-Roettinger.
The Skims swimwear edit available to shop at Selfridges Manchester Trafford and Selfridges Manchester Exchange Square will include the brand’s signature cuts in multiple coverage levels and colourways.
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The Skims swim collection, now available to shop in ManchesterThe Skims swim collection, now available to shop in Manchester. Credit: SuppliedThe Skims swim collection, now available to shop in Manchester. Credit: Supplied
The pop-up experience and arrival into Europe follows the opening of a Skims Summer Pop-Up in New York, where visitors waited in a queue for more than two hours every day to shop.
The brand has also revealed plans to expand into free-standing stores across the UK and Europe within the next three years.
Jens Grede, co-founder and CEO at Skims said: “I’m thrilled to open our first international pop-up experience at the iconic Selfridges Corner Shop. We expect demand and buzz to be high as this is the first time SKIMS Swim will be available in retail outside of the U.S.
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“The pop-up experience will set the tone for the future of Skims in London, as the cultural and fashion destination is a key market for our global expansion.”
The Skims pop-up space in Selfridges London. Credit: SuppliedThe Skims pop-up space in Selfridges London. Credit: Supplied
Robert Norton, Chief Commercial Officer at Skims, said: “As we look to establish SKIMS as a global brand, Selfridges London is the optimal starting point for the next phase of SKIMS journey with our existing customer base in the UK and unparalleled business at Selfridges to date.
“The pop-up experience and expansion of our permanent shop-in-shop space at Selfridges set the framework for our global retail strategy, and we will continue to leverage multi-brand partnerships this year as we plan to open 35 shop-in-shops in the U.S. and internationally.”
Bosse Myhr, Selfridges Director of Womenswear and Menswear, said: “We are extremely excited to welcome SKIMS Swim to the Selfridges Corner Shop, continuing to build on our long-standing relationship with the brand.
“We know our customers love SKIMS product and its distinct point of view. We are looking forward to Selfridges customers being the first to explore the SKIMS Swim collection in Europe, with an extraordinary shopping experience that will get everyone in the mood for summer.”
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Skims is available to shop in Manchester now at Selfridges store, while stocks last.
Featured image: Supplied
Shopping
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Tesco are introducing ‘VAR-style’ self-checkouts in the UK
Danny Jones
Many people think VAR has already gone too far and want it gone from football full stop, and we’re here to tell you that you’re a fool; your hopes are in vain, and the technology is only going to become more common as time goes on. Sorry.
So much so, in fact, that Tesco look are bringing in their own virtual referee into self-checkout systems in shops. You could say the ‘game’s gone…’
Of course, we’re being a bit flippant here, but if you have seen ‘VAR’ and ‘Tesco‘, you’re not seeing things: this is genuinely a thing that is being rolled out here in the UK, with video footage of the supermarket chain’s next self-checkout technology going viral online.
Thought you’d got away with sneaking an extra little something in the bag without paying? Think again.
— UB1UB2 West London (Southall) (@UB1UB2) May 28, 2025
We’ll admit, this was the first time we’d come across the technology, but as it turns out, the updated self-checkout service has been in place for a while.
Similar VAR checkouts have already been installed at other retailers, Sainsbury’s and ASDA, although some reports claim that while stores capture footage of shoppers to check if they’ve scanned all of their items, it is thought that not all of these self-service tills show a playback when an error is detected.
Although this particular speculation has sparked some uproar and debate online, many have quite rightly pointed out that CCTV records your movement in any given shop.
Regardless, it’s fair to say that aside from the obvious memes and people poking fun at the new system, many on social media have shared some pretty strong opinions on the matter.
Not that it matters much – it’s likely this will soon become increasingly the norm, with the likes of Sainsbury’s having already introduced barriers which require customers to scan their receipt in order to leave at branches such as the site on Regent Road Retail Park over in Salford.
As yet, it’s unclear how many of these new self-service tills are in operation and whether they are limited to larger supermarket locations of their Express convenience stores, but don’t be surprised if you come across one.
Put simply, if a barcode isn’t registered before being put on the scale and/or set aside to be packed away, the Tesco till will read: “The last item wasn’t scanned properly. Remove from bagging area and try again.”
Addressing these new VAR-style checkouts in an official statement, a company spokesperson said: “We are always looking at technology to make life easier for our customers.
“We have recently installed a new system at some stores which helps customers using self-service checkouts identify if an item has not been scanned properly, making the checkout process quicker and easier.”
What do you make of the new Tesco and their new VAR self-checkout technology?
Daisy Jackson -
22nd June 2023 
