Kimora Lee Simmons Has Built A Business Empire That Has Included Involvement In Celsius, Founding Baby Phat, And More – AfroTech

Kimora Lee Simmons’ business empire is not to be played with.

Modeling

Simmons today wears many hats in the industry, but one of her earliest was as a supermodel. She began modeling at 13 when she signed with the house of Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld, according to WWD. Chanel was her first casting, and she moved to Paris at the time. However, she had to make the move alone because her mother wasn’t able to go with her, She was working for the government in social security at the time.

“I was homesick. I was running up $5,000 a month phone bills,” Lee recalled on “The Skinny Confidential” podcast.

Simmons remained under contract with Chanel. She acknowledges that times were hard, but she wasn’t happy with her life in St. Louis. She ultimately chose a lifestyle of being surrounded by supermodels at 31 Rue Cambon, Chanel’s headquarters. She has also walked the runway for Armani, Fendi, Valentino, Tracy Reese, Isaac Mizrahi, and Marc Jacobs, WWD reports.

Simmons did want a game plan to transition out of modeling, which led her into entrepreneurship.

“I couldn’t stomach being in an industry that was like so built on like the fluff of like how you look alone … Keep in mind I was navigating this as a kid. So I’m figuring this out on my own and I’m figuring out it’s not really a place I want to live,” she explained on the podcast.

Baby Phat

In 1999, she launched what became a massively popular women’s lifestyle brand, Baby Phat. The brand was positioned as the female counterpart to Phat Farm, with both operating under her then-husband Russell Simmons’ Phat Fashions, its website mentions. She served as president and co-founder.

One of her business strategies was giving her clothes to her model friends to wear. The brand took off, and within two years, Baby Phat hit $1 billion in revenue.

“Chasing that 2000s vibe, the late 90s (Y2K era). It was a movement, and I was speaking to women, young women, single women, married women, women, and I was giving them first of all a lot of fashion, because I was from all the high fashion runways. I’m giving you a lot of fashion and insight and style and flare for a buck, for a dollar, right? My jacket is not like Chanel … but I’m giving you kind of style and flare and design. So, the girls felt like they were getting something,” she said on the podcast.

Baby Phat was sold in 2004 to Kellwood Apparel for $140 million, Vibe reports. Simmons stayed on as brand president and creative director, a transition which she admits was rough. She then departed in 2010, and the decision was “abrupt” and “unexpected,” according to an interview with the Daily News in 2010.

Nine years later, she bought back the business, which remains relevant today as many are still embracing the Y2K era.

“We were really the architects of [Y2K style.] I saw this girl on TikTok or Snapchat, and she had [Baby Phat’s] big dangly cat earrings. A couple of years back, Rihanna bought the whole archival collection. I’ve seen Gigi Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski wearing it. I was like, ‘What,’” Simmons told Vogue.

“Celsius is thrilled to announce this partnership with Horizon Ventures, Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee Simmons. On the cusp of our positive fourth quarter, we are excited for these business icons to join our team,” Gerry David, CEO of Celsius Holdings Inc., said at the time in a news release. “This strategic partnership will broaden our reach across consumers and will further strengthen our position in both domestic and global markets.”

Simmons reportedly owned 892,732 shares in Celsius Holdings Inc., which she claims was made possible through earnings from modeling and Baby Phat, per Bloomberg. It is unknown if she still owns those shares as Russell is contesting her ownership, and the lawsuit is still playing out in the courts.

Simmons’ journey as an entrepreneur and mother has recently returned to the screen with the launch of a reality TV series, “Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane,” on E!