USC athletes took center stage in a new Nike/SKIMS campaign, starring alongside female professional athletes including Serena Williams, Jordan Chiles and Sha’carri Richardson.
The debut line spans seven collections and more than 10,000 ways to “create a look,” according to the SKIMS website. The partnership comes after many high-profile collaborations between SKIMS and other luxury brands, including Dolce and Gabbana and Roberto Cavalli, as well as several partnerships with professional athletes, including Donovan Mitchell and Sophie Cunningham.
Athletes from the women’s lacrosse, volleyball and basketball teams, all of whom were paid for their participation and received merchandise under NIL deals, were featured in the campaign alongside athletes from UCLA. The campaign was shot at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum over the summer for the brands’ social media pages and websites, and some images were also displayed in the Nike store at The Grove.
Madison Pietsch, an opposite hitter on the volleyball team, said she was tapped for the shoot on her week off from practice, when head coach Brad Keller called her.
“I was just shocked and really excited because, doing any sort of brand deal, that’s really cool, but for it to be Nike/SKIMS, which is a brand I would choose out of my own personal interest, [it] was really cool to have that experience,” said Pietsch.
While USC student-athletes are no strangers to the NIL opportunities available to them, with current and former athletes working with brands including Dr. Pepper and Chipotle, the shoot was freshman outside hitter Presley Kiffin’s first NIL deal and first time representing USC Volleyball for a brand.
“The first time I was doing something happened to be, like the top brand in athletics,” said Kiffin. “It was really cool to see how us and UCLA were picked out too from any other colleges, because it’s like a big thing for the program to be one of only two schools in that entire shoot.”
Sophomore basketball player Vivian Iwuchukwu was also excited to have the opportunity to collaborate with athletes from UCLA that she normally competes against.
“That’s our rival school, but having to work with them, I think it was exciting to see them there,” said Iwuchukwu. “So I think it was an exciting moment for us to have that common denominator, outside of just being rivals all the time.”
SKIMS is the official underwear partner of the NBA and WNBA. More recently, SKIMS announced a campaign with LOVB, a professional women’s volleyball league slowly growing across the United States. With the launch of the line, SKIMS has formed a major multi-year partnership with Nike.
Mia Tvrdy, a transfer from Oregon, emphasized how unique this opportunity to model for Nike/SKIMS was for USC athletes.
“I don’t think you’re gonna get that anywhere else, I definitely didn’t get it at Oregon,” said Tvrdy, a middle blocker. “The shoot day was actually really fun.”