Baby Phat: Staying True
By: Boyd Davis
(Photo below: Kimora Lee Simmons on the runway, Fall 2004. Photo by Javier Mateo

Feb 14, 2002/ FW/ --- Baby Phat started as an advertising campaign. Russell Simmons, founder of young men's fashion label PHAT FARM designed some cute T-shirts as a promotional campaign for the brand.

The campaign was so successful that celebrities like Tyra Banks were seen wearing the Baby Phat tees. Recognizing the potential, Russell Simmons decided to launch a new line for women and named it Baby Phat.

His wife, Kimora Lee Simmons, who was a former model of Chanel and muse to Karl Lagerfeld was brought on board to be the Creative Director of the brand.

As a husband and wife design team working on their own label, the Phat label also includes today children (Phat Farm Kids). They have also collaborated with Motorola for a Phat Farm and Baby Phat cell phone, even have a charge card (yes as in credit cards) bearing the name Baby Phat and Phat Farm.

In February 2004, the labels merged with the Kellwood Company. That move is expected to grow the brands bigger.

A dozen years seem like a long time, but the hip-hop lifestyle, the basis of both Phat Farm and Baby Phat, had been around much longer.

Out of the contemporary American culture he helped to shape, Russell Simmons and his wife and Kimora Lee Simmons have stayed true to the spirit of hip hop, a 20-year movement among African-Americans which has seeped into the mainstream during the past several years.

Technically, the hip hop generation means the African-American population born between 1965-1984, the first generation of blacks who were born and raised after desegregation.

Starting as an underground movement, it manifested itself first in music - rap music.

Following at its heels was fashion, and then the language.

The labels PHAT Farm and Baby PHAT are actually part of the hip hop slang, PHAT being the acronym for 'Pretty Hot And Tempting.'

Today, hip hop remains a subculture of the American youth culture and manifests itself not only in music, fashion and language, but in basketball, the movies, and in technology.

Russell Simmons, who is the designer behind Phat Farm, is also a businessman and founder of Def Jam Poetry, wherein poetry is performed and staged alongside with rap. For, isn't it that rap music is also a form of poetry?

Def Jam Poetry is also currently shown at HBO, another sign that hip hop has reached the mainstream

Kimora Lee Simmons is a former model turned designer. She is the Creative Director of her own label, Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons.

Today, the menswear collection includes sportswear, outerwear, loungewear, underwear, footwear, bags and belts.

Luggage, home and fragrance are in development. Key to Phat Farm's success is the brand's commitment to quality, innovation in design and support of the retail trade through strategic marketing and advertising.

For the consumer, Phat Farm delivers a universal message that transcends the "urban fashion label" by breaking stereotypes and ethnic boundaries -- setting the new standard in sportswear and establishing Phat Farm as the complete American lifestyle brand.

Fall 2005 (Photo by Javier Mateo)

Fall 2006 (Photo by Giovanni Pucci)

Website: www.babyphat.com

Address
BABY PHAT
512 Seventh Ave, 43rd Floor
New York, NY 10018
Contact: BJ Coleman
T: 212-997-3079
F: 212-997-3093

LAFORCE & STEVENS
132 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011
Contact: Chris Constable
T: 212-242-9353
F: 212-242-9565