Perhaps she got tired of designing cheap clothes for the ordinary woman. Because, if there is one thing Kimora Lee Simmons is not, it is ordinary.
As the reality TV star and former model rolled into town with an entourage in tow to launch her new high-end fashion range, she could hardly be accused of blending into the crowd.
But then, at 6ft tall, in teetering Louboutin snakeskin stiletto-heeled sandals and with a voice that carries – “everyone who knows me knows I like to be heard,” she declared – there was no danger of her not being noticed.
Simmons, who was accompanied by her new banker husband Tim Leissner, her brand manager and an assistant, was in Dubai sharing her top styling tips as part of the Dubai Summer Surprises 2014 extravaganza.
She has another motive for coming to the UAE, as she is in the process of launching her new KLS Kimora Lee Simmons clothing range – a move away from the high-street appeal of her JustFab fashions and carrying a far higher price tag – but has yet to secure an outlet in the Middle East to stock her brand.
In an event organised on Sunday by Galéries Lafayette in The Dubai Mall, she shared the stage with a panel of fashion experts and Dubai residents to share what she has learnt from a lengthy career in modelling and fashion.
“I have been looking forward to this for a long while,” said Simmons.
“I have been here a few times and absolutely love it. I love the food, the people, the architecture and the shopping.
“The women are always so glamorous. For me, the abaya is a particular favourite because it lends itself to so much drama and glamour.”
Simmons, 39, whose role as the unstoppable president and creative director of the online shopping service JustFab was immortalised in the TV show Kimora: House of Fab (she also starred in Life in the Fab Lane), was dressed in one of her own designs, a white fitted sheath dress.
So, has she turned her back on the women wooed by JustFab with promises of shoes for less than US$40 (Dh147) and a pledge to “make designer fashion accessible to every fashionista regardless of budget”? And does she ever wear her cheaper clothes?
“Absolutely, all the time. They look so great,” she insisted.
She said she was a regular at Zara and H&M, thanks to her two teenage daughters Ming and Aoki, who loved to shop there and come out “looking like a million dollars”.
“I love to mix and match,” she added.
But when the former model – who was picked up by Chanel at the age of 13 and became Karl Lagerfeld’s muse – takes to the red carpet, it is designer fashions she is inevitably dressed in from head to toe.
“I am a bit of a classic girl,” she said. “KLS is my higher-end unit. I have so many different incarnations and different lines, but this is about great fashion at a higher price.”
Anyone expecting the high drama and occasional screaming matches of her reality show was sorely disappointed. Simmons – who was once married to Russell Simmons, the founder of the hip-hop label Def Jam – was all smiles and got up repeatedly to pass her microphone around the crowd of 200 for questions during a technical hitch. She even managed to tweet the word Mashallah in praise of a Dubai sunset.
But then, the mother of three who was brought up as the only child of a single mum in St Louis, Missouri, is a savvy businesswoman who has worked hard to achieve success. “I have a really charmed life,” she said.
artslife@thenational.ae
