Kim Kardashian West takes her beauty show on the road to a new Costa Mesa pop-up shop
Kim Kardashian West was in the middle of filming a beauty tutorial with her longtime makeup artist, Mario Dedivanovic, on a Monday morning in mid-November at a Los Angeles studio.
“I’m kind of used to living out of a suitcase right now,” she said on the phone with a sigh.
This admission had nothing to do with Kardashian West’s jet-setting lifestyle.
As it has been reported, the reality star-turned-KKW Beauty founder’s $60-million Calabasas mansion was spared by the devastating Woolsey fire largely because of a team of private firefighters she and husband Kanye West hired.
“We’re super lucky,” she said. “I can’t even begin to imagine people that have lost their homes and family members that are still missing. It’s probably the most devastating thing I’ve seen happen in California. I’m just praying for everyone and their families. I hope that something like this never happens again.”
Kardashian West said she and her family were in San Francisco when the wildfire started. They hopped on a plane to return home.
“The power was out, so everything was pitch black except for the fires from the air, and then we learned [the wildfire] was close to our house,” she said. “They said we had about an hour to evacuate.”
The Kardashian West family rushed home to gather belongings. “You just kind of make peace with that and know that pretty much everything is replaceable and you take the things that are not,” Kardashian West said, adding that she hunkered down with roll-away beds inside a hotel suite with her husband’s family and other family she had in from out of town. “We made it work,” she said.
She still hadn’t returned home — hence the suitcase. However, as the reality star and businesswoman knows: the show must go on. Therefore, she took a break from shooting the makeup tutorial to discuss the evolution of her KKW Beauty and Fragrance brand, which has a new pop-up shop at South Coast Plaza. The temporary store opened Tuesday and will remain so through the end of February.
“It’s one of the highest traffic malls in California, so I really was excited for this opportunity,” Kardashian West said. “I’ve been going there forever. I thought it was such a good location.” The South Coast Plaza location is her second pop-up after hosting one at the Westfield Century City shopping center in June.
Like that previous location, the new pop-up at the Costa Mesa shopping center will include custom installation pieces that mimic KKW Beauty products. “I really wanted the pop-up to look special,” she said. “It’s fun to have a destination where people can take pictures.”
The store will sell products from KKW Beauty and KKW Fragrance, including concealers, contours, highlight kits, lipstick, lip liners and fragrances, along with her most popular collections such as KKW X Mario, KKW X Argenis, the Classic Blossom Collection and Flashing Lights Collection. The store will also launch new products such as a Crystal Purse Spray Trio ($35) and a new Kimoji Hearts fragrance ($30).
The KKW Beauty store’s staffers will be outfitted in “clean and cool” looks by Yeezy, her husband’s brand, Kardashian West said.
“The Yeezy color palette vibes with the KKW Beauty color palette,” she said, adding that her husband often gives her advice and feedback on everything from packaging to photo shoots and fonts.
“We’re really involved in each other’s lives and business,” she said. “We’re very open with everything and we work at home in front of each other and all over the place when we’re traveling. … I totally value his opinions.”
Will her young daughters, North and Chicago, be primed for the family cosmetic business? “If that’s what they would want, I would want that for them,” she said. “But if they have a completely different path, then I’m happy with that too. This is my path and this is what I’m passionate about, but I would never assume that that’s what my kids would be passionate about as well. I would love for them to be a part of it, but I’m happy either way.”
The other part of Kardashian West’s occupation requires her to be on camera seemingly 24/7, but she insisted she has a private life. “There are definitely private sides to me,” she said. “I don’t share every last thing. I think that sometimes people would assume that because I live my life on a reality show, you see every last thing, and you just don’t. There are so many private moments and fights and fun times and, you know, events that we do keep private, and I think that keeps us sane also.”
Asked if she’ll one day leave the cameras behind, Kardashian West paused for a contemplative three seconds before saying, “I think about it sometimes, but I do think I’ll always go back to it. I think that it might be like a mood or a phase. But to say that I haven’t thought about that or haven’t felt that would be a lie. But I think it is who I am at heart and I’ve always been [known for] sharing my life with the world, and I love that job as well.”
This holiday season, Kardashian West said she hopes to fit in a ski trip, her traditional Christmas Eve party and the family’s infamous Kardashian Christmas card. “I just wrote the whole family yesterday and said, ‘I think we were so traumatized by our Christmas card last year, getting everyone together, that we forgot to do a Christmas card this year,’” she said. “So I don’t know if we should scramble to get one together or if it’s just too dramatic. We have a whole year to think about it. I don’t know why it’s such a [hard] thing to try to get us all together to do one.”
As she looks at the year ahead, the self-proclaimed “business-minded” entrepreneur said she’s grateful. “I feel really blessed that we’ve been so successful,” she said of launching KKW Beauty in June 2017. “I don’t take that for granted.”
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