The Best Baby Phat Fashion Moments of All Time, Ahead of the Relaunch
Twenty years after Baby Phat was introduced to the world by Kimora Lee Simmons Leissner, the streetwear brand is officially back. The model and mogul announced the return on International Women’s Day, revealing that she purchased it and has plans to relaunch it this summer. This news is thrilling to young women like me, who grew up wearing Baby Phat religiously. It wasn’t just my go-to line for puffers, hoodies, and jeans emblazoned with that iconic cat logo, although the clothes were stylish enough on their own. As a young woman who had to reconcile her deep love for hip hop culture with the misogyny present in music videos and rap songs, Baby Phat meant so much more to me.
At the time women’s streetwear brands were just feminized version of the men’s and their advertisements all seemed to cater to the male gaze, Baby Phat centered women. It was created and designed by a woman who was fiercely independent and strong, and she didn’t have any qualms about reminding you of that fact. Kimora Lee wasn’t just hip hop mogul Russell Simmons’ then-wife; she had a successful career as a supermodel before she even met him (modeling for the likes of Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel). And she was a sharp business woman with complete control over her empire. Sure Baby Phat started as an offshoot of Simmons’ brand Phat Farm, but it eventually became the most successful line under the Phat Fashions umbrella, growing into a billion-dollar enterprise.
Women’s empowerment was at the core of the Baby Phat brand ethos from the start. Ads depicted Kimora living the glamorous life, stepping off a reimagined version of the Air Force One, clad in a pink printed jacket and oversized black sunglasses. The men in that famed image cater to her, holding her pink handbag and carrying her luggage as she waves to an adoring crowd of fans. In the world of Baby Phat, Kimora is President.
After her famed runway shows — some of the only Fashion Week events I was invited to when I worked for a Black women’s magazine — she’d walk the catwalk with her 2 daughters in tow, showing us that you could be a mother and a boss, those roles aren’t mutually exclusive.
The new Baby Phat will continue that storied legacy. According to the brand’s press release, it will be “woman-owned, woman-led, and as always, designed by and for women.” Of course, that’s a selling point for many contemporary brands in today’s climate. The fashion industry has finally realized that it’s marketable to “uplift” the women you’re shelling products to. But Baby Phat is different. Kimora celebrated women when it wasn’t the industry standard. Her devotion to women was genuine when the brand was founded in 1999 — and now, with her daughters Ming, 19, and Aoki, 16, on board for the relaunch, that commitment will only deepen.
With its return just a couple months away, we’re looking back at 5 iconic Baby Phat moments that make us so excited for the relaunch.
Getty Images1/5Kimora Lee Simmons made a point to walk the runway at her fashion show finales with her children in tow, balancing motherhood and business for the world to see.
Getty Images2/5Baby Phat phone cases were all the rage in the early 2000s. Cam'ron famously wore a pink, embellished phone with a matching fur hoodie to the brand's Fall 2003 show. His look is now considered iconic, inspiring countless Halloween costumes and even one of North West's most recent outfits.
Getty Images3/5Kimora Lee Simmons regularly enlisted an inclusive cast to model her designs, including Alek Wek who walked in several Baby Phat fashion shows. It's still a rarity to see majority-black model casts at Fashion Week, and even rarer to see a black woman designer running the show.
Getty Images4/5There's no logo-mania quite like Baby Phat logo-mania. The famous embellished cat logo showed up on earrings, puffer jackets, tops, jeans, shoes and more — and some devout fans even sat for Baby Phat logo tattoos.
Getty Images5/5Baby Phat runway shows were a celebration of black fashion, before the rest of the industry deemed it "cool". Kimora tapped rappers like Lil Kim to walk in the fashion show, she invited black magazine editors to sit front row, and she even hired a black publicist, BJ Coleman, to organize the invite list. As a young editor working at a Black Women's magazine at the time, Baby Phat was one of the only fashion shows I was invited to each season.
