You Need To Know-Designer Kimora Lee Simmons.Kimora Lee Simmons (born Kimora Lee Perkins on May 4, 1975) is a celebrated half-Korean the president and Creative Director for Phat Fashions. Formerly the Creative Director of Baby Phat, Simmons became CEO of Phat Fashions after ex-husband Russell Simmons stepped down. A 2007 reality television show, Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane, focuses on her life as a mother and CEO of Phat Fashions. She has appeared in music videos and was a judge on the first season of America's Next Top Model. She was scheduled to return to the show as a judge starting with cycle 14,however, she changed her plans and will not return to the show as judge
Simmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri and is of Asian and African American descent.Although her mother, Joanne Perkins, was born in Korea, she is Japanese.Perkins was adopted by an American serviceman during the Korean War and she now goes by her own mother's Japanese name, Kyoko. Her father, Vernon Whitlock Jr., is African American. He has worked as a Federal Marshal, a Social Security Administrator, and a barber in St. Louis.
Growing up in the northern St. Louis suburb of Florissant, Missouri, Simmons was the target of schoolyard bullying and teasing, because of her height (she was 5 feet, 10 inches tall by the time she was 10 years old)and mixed ancestry. To help Simmons, her mother enrolled her in a modeling class when she was eleven years old. Two years later she was discovered by Marie-Christine Kollock (a representative for seminal Paris Agency Glamour) at a Model Search in St. Louis (organized by Kay Mitchell) and sent to Paris. Simmons was awarded an exclusive modeling contract with Chanel and just after her thirteenth birthday, went to work under the tutelage of famed Chanel designer, Karl Lagerfeld.
Fashion business
In 2004 Russell Simmons sold Phat Farm to Kellwood Company for $140 million. When Russell stepped down as CEO of Phat Fashions LLC in September 2007, Kimora — who was already Creative Director of Baby Phat (which was a branch off Phat Farm Industries) — was promoted by Kellwood to President and Creative Director of Phat Fashions. It is Simmons' goal to fashion Baby Phat, launched in 1999, into an "aspirational lifestyle brand."Her couture line, KLS, launched in Fall 2007.
A self-help book written by Simmons, Fabulosity: What It Is and How to Get It, was published by HarperEntertainment in February 2006. The book is set to function as a 'lifestyle manual' on everything from spirituality and finances to fashion and beauty.
In February 2008, Simmons' Barbie doll was launched, created under the direction of Simmons.She has also launched four perfumes for women: Goddess, Golden Goddess, Seductive Goddess and recently, Baby Phat Fabulosity.
She quickly gained attention in the fashion world when Lagerfeld closed his haute couture show with Simmons, who strutted down the runway decked out as a child bride. "Everything people thought was weird about me before," Simmons told People Weekly, "was now good". By age 14, she had grown to a height of six feet.
Simmons is a graduate of Lutheran High School North in St. Louis, Missouri.
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