party lines

Kimora Lee Simmons’s Inappropriate Juniors’-Line Launch Party

Sigh.Photo: WireImage

Yesterday when we got a preview of Kimora Lee Simmons’s new juniors’ line for JCPenney, Fabulosity, we were surprised by how modest and dress-code-friendly it was. We wondered if Kimora might surprise us again at the launch party that night with a similar sense of age-appropriateness. We don’t know why we bothered wondering.

Kimora told us at the soirée at Hiro nightclub she didn’t approach designing her juniors’ line any differently from her Baby Phat and KLS lines. “It has its similarities and it has its differences, but the price point and the age group is a little lower,” she explained. “Though, technically, in the new line, I wear a lot of it. You’re going to see these girls on the runway and you’re going to say ‘Kimora did that.’ Because I would wear that. And my kids would wear that. So it’s a very diverse line.” Before we could ask if that meant she wears the same clothes as her kids, her publicist Keesha Johnson informed the slew of print reporters we had one more question. So we asked about her plans for Fashion Week. When she finished compellingly explaining to a tabloid how Djimon Hounsou and her daughters get along so well, she turned to us as her publicist tried to usher her away and said, “I’m working hard. I’ll see you there, right?”

Inside the ballroom, the show kicked off with a nine-piece drum line pumping up the crowd pep-rally style. Finally, something that reminds us we’re here for the kids! But things took a scandalous turn when the real music started and the models came out. Lyrics like “Honey, I like it rough, rough” and “hey motherf–ker,” blasted incessantly through the speakers. The collection consisted of loose tube tops desperately in need of built-in bras, knee-high boots trimmed in fake fur, and slinky, low-back halter dresses. One unlucky model actually flashed her entire chest when her poorly fitted tube top slid down. For the grand finale the models — some clad in mighty short skirts — took spots on opposing staircases and danced with the banisters. When the largest cascade of fat silver confetti we’d ever seen burst from the ceiling, threatening our Champagne, we knew it was time to go.

Just when we thought things couldn’t get any more un-teen, we opened our gift bags. Guess what was inside! Nary a trinket from the Fabulosity line, as we expected. But rather a bottle of Champagne. They may not know teens, but at least they’re well versed in gift-bag therapy.—Sharon Clott

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Kimora Lee Simmons’s Inappropriate Juniors’-Line Launch Party