Kimora Lee Simmons reimagined glamor for a certain kind of girl. Dressing nationwide “baddies” of all ages in velour sweatsuits and staging sensational runway shows, Simmons transformed her passion for the finer things in life into the blinged-out empire known as Baby Phat. Immortalized by Twitter fans as the “Queen of Blasia,” for her mixed Black and Asian roots, her proximity to flashy fashion isn’t meant to stunt on or intimidate her fans. Rather, she strives to serve as a living blueprint for women and people of color who want to be on top, too. 

The Karl Lagerfield-certified, haute couture model and mogul can’t pinpoint the moment Baby Phat took off, but Simmons talks about her brand like one of her five children. “Baby Phat’s older than Mingy, who’s 23. Do you know when they became a real person?” she riffs. “You wouldn’t know that defining moment as a brand.” Reveling in her self-proclaimed “auntie era,” Simmons jokes about being recognized as Ming Lee’s or Aoki Lee’s mom instead of the BFA-stopping celebrity who was the driving force behind iconic cultural moments that so suavely merged hip-hop and fashion in the 2000s—an image of Cam’ron, the rapper known for the feel-good hit “Hey Ma,” drenched in fuchsia fur and holding a bubblegum pink Baby Phat i833 Motorola at Simmons’s 2003 fall show comes to mind.

But she’s come a long way since then. In Baby Phat’s “coming of age” journey—where the company went from filling a niche in womenswear to a full-on household name—Simmons has too many milestones, cosmetic lines, and collaborations to remember. With guides like her self-help book, Fabulosity, and fashion-focused reality TV show, Life in the Fab Lane, Simmons has also prioritized bringing people up with her along the way: “I created my brand, I did everything that I could to give people that look like me, the oddball, a voice… to show them how to make something out of nothing.” As generations of Baby Phat-stamped (like, literally tattooed) fans have become bosses in their own right, we have grown to realize the empathetic, layered, but ultimately well-intentioned truth about Kimora Lee Simmons. At her core, she’s unwavering in her frank wisdom about purpose and responsibility: “I’ve always said this in interviews,” Simmons says, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

Simmons holds everyone to the same high standards she holds herself to. “I’m very good at maintaining myself and many, many people around me, so the least I expect is that you do that for me,” she says. Be protective of your energy, your space, your mind, your soul. But, give love where it’s warranted and the first place is with yourself.” As she redirects the photographer during her V shoot, she explains she simply refuses to let anyone take her vision down a notch. “And that’s perceived as being a diva,” she says without apology.  Looking back at her younger self—one who was married at 17 to someone twice her age, a girl who was immersed in an opinionated world that deemed her a “material girl” and dedicated countless news pages to speculating on the scope of her designer archives—she muses that she “probably shopped as a way to ease the chaos.” Now, the crocodile Birkin on her glam table is nothing more than a marker, an object representing how she’s “constantly rewarded by advancing in life and going in the right direction.”

Kirsten Chen: When you were younger, did you want to be rich or famous?

Kimora Lee Simmons: I didn’t think about it like that. But if I did, it would be a yes. I’m a Taurus, that’s in my essence. It’s more of ambition, challenging yourself to be better. To push yourself to do more. To achieve these heights that people said you could never do because you look funny. If you compete against yourself, you’re always going to get better than you were in the last moment or whenever you were down. If you’re trying to keep up with the next person though, we don’t know how that works for you. It’s like minding the business that pays you (laughs), not the business that’s in the room.

KC: With your life and what’s inside of you, you’re rare. How do you protect your energy?

KLS: I went to a meeting with the government last week, and it was a crazy big meeting. I came home and literally slept the rest of the afternoon, through the night, until the next day when I went to work again. You know, it’s like why Jack Nicholson said he always wears sunglasses—dark glasses—even inside. Because he was like, ‘You can’t have all those people looking into your soul and absorbing your energy.’ Or shaking hands. I wash my hands all the time. Because you’re constantly touching people and transferring that energy. I don’t have time for the BS. That’s how I preserve my energy. And I mind my business. I’m at home with my kids. I’ve made my life with other moms and other kids. That’s my thing. I feel like that’s rubbed off on all my friends that now have kids. 

KC: Building off that, how does it feel to be the original Blasian/ Asian/ POC “baddie”?

KLS: It makes me feel great because now there are so many others like me. There [are] little girls named Kimora, there’re Ming Lee’s, there’re Aoki’s. My life is very representative and inclusive. I always believe that about fashion. I don’t believe it has to be so exclusive that somebody can’t get in or somebody can’t have access. That’s not my philosophy of how I came up because I was so different. The more, the merrier. Everybody can get it. 

KC: You’ve never confirmed it, is it true that Phat stands for ‘Pretty, Hot, and Tempting?’

KLS: Yes, that’s true. That’s one of them.

KC: Are there other ones?

KLS: Yeah, but they’re probably vulgar. One of them is “Pussy, Hips, Ass, and Tits.” You’re going to need a lot of stars and marks on that one. But, it’s an acronym, there are many things it could be. 

KC: Everyone on social media is obsessed with documentation or sharing archives. I’ve heard legendary stories from Baby Phat runways, why don’t we see more documentation?

KLS: It’s probably because I don’t have the documentation myself. And it’s more the fans that do it, which are like my family at this point, they brought up with me, the girls, and my journey along life. It’s sort of coming of age, as a brand, in the digital time. We didn’t have TikTok and Instagram. I have actual footage coming down the runway, magazines, and ad campaigns. Whereas if you started a brand now, you’d probably document an archive and do things differently. 

KC: If everything in the material world was gone, what are the core qualities that no one can ever take from Kimora Lee Simmons?

KLS: My core qualities are integrity, and honesty, which is also the truthfulness in my voice. I’m very kind, I think. Deep down inside, some people might be a bit scared, like, she seems scary or, like, even a bitch. But, I’m very giving, I always want to help women and children. It’s kind of cyclical. I feel like I live up to that, but I definitely get it back.

KC: Back in the day, people were always reporting on your material things. But you have a philosophy that seems to balance this out.

KLS: They were so obsessed!

KC: ‘She has the biggest Louis Vuitton collection.’

KLS: Well, I had! I don’t even know why they said that. Louis Vuitton, they definitely said it to me. I’m friends with Louis. I go back with these things. I have a lot of stuff. And I still have those things sitting in my closet. What difference does it make? Except Ming and Aoki, and now Kenzo, Gary, and Wolf, have a pretty good closet of, like, luggage and the girls have clothes and jewelry. You make your way as you go. I’ve been here a long time.

KC: So, she’s less of a material girl than we thought.

KLS: I am a material girl! I have amazing vintage, all of these things. I think I got them because when I was growing up, I was probably sad. I was in a world that was much bigger than me and grown, and I was like twenty-something. I think I shopped as a way to ease the chaos or the pain or whatever. The more your stuff defines you, the more you set yourself up to fail. Have you noticed, that if there’s something that you covet and love so much, those are the things that are taken away? It was never important to me. I’m just taking the interviews. I’m glad to have the hits.

Baby Phat will be dropping limited collections all year in honor of its 25th anniversary.

This story appears in the pages of V146: now available for purchase!

Photography Juan Veloz

Fashion Timothy Luke

Makeup Ivan Nunez

Hair Hachoo

Set design Winston Studios