Long before the Kardashian name became synonymous with billion-dollar beauty brands and sprawling business empires, there was a small clothing boutique in Calabasas, Calif., built on a credit card, a whole lot of ambition and, by Khloé Kardashian’s own admission, almost no clue what they were getting into.
During a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s The Morgan Stewart Show, Khloé, 41, took a candid look back at the early days of Dash the fashion boutique she launched alongside sisters Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian around 2006. What followed was a refreshingly honest account of three young women learning the retail business entirely on the fly.
A credit card, a $50,000 limit and a dream
The seed money for the entire operation came from an unlikely source. When their father, the late Robert Kardashian, passed away in 2003 at age 59 from esophageal cancer, Kourtney, 46, retained a credit card that had originally been opened in his name. Over time, it rolled over entirely into her name, carrying a $50,000 limit a figure the sisters treated as an almost unimaginable fortune at the time.
That credit line became the financial backbone of the boutique’s first inventory run. The sisters loaded up on clothing and dove headfirst into a business none of them had formally trained for. They chose Calabasas as their first location simply because that was where they lived, not because of any strategic market research or demographic analysis.
No employees, no playbook, no problem
In those early days, it was largely Khloé and Kourtney running the entire operation themselves. The two sisters handled every task imaginable scrubbing floors, steaming garments, managing taxes and restocking shelves without a single employee to share the workload. There was no operations manual, no retail mentor and no roadmap.
It was also around this time that their mother, Kris Jenner, began planting the seeds of what would eventually become one of the most watched reality franchises in television history. Initially, all three sisters pushed back on the idea of a TV show, but Kris reframed her pitch in a way that landed: she suggested the cameras could essentially function as a promotional vehicle for the store they were already pouring their energy into. That was enough to get them on board.
From Calabasas to a 12 year run
What started as a scrappy single location boutique eventually grew into a multi city brand. The sisters expanded Dash to include locations in Los Angeles, Miami Beach and New York City, and the store even inspired its own spinoff series, Dash Dolls.
But after more than a decade in business, the chapter came to a close. In April 2018, Kim, 45, announced on her website that the sisters had collectively decided to shut Dash down for good. In her announcement, she reflected warmly on everything the brand had meant to the family the memories made, the milestones celebrated and the growth they had each experienced along the way. She noted that in recent years, each sister had become increasingly focused on her own individual projects, and that the time had come to move forward.
A launching pad for bigger things
Looking back, the Dash era reads less like a cautionary tale and more like an origin story. The same sisters who once argued over who had to do the steaming have since built some of the most recognizable brands in their respective industries. Khloé went on to co found Good American, her widely celebrated denim and apparel label. Kim launched the shapewear giant SKIMS. Kourtney has built a wellness lifestyle brand with Lemme.
None of that happened overnight, and if Khloé’s retelling is any indication, none of it would have happened at all without that first messy, imperfect, figure it out as you go leap inside a Calabasas boutique nearly two decades ago.
