True Religion × Baby Phat 首度联名走秀：低腰回来了，怀旧这门生意也回来了

On Tuesday evening, at Van Nuys Airport’s splashy new terminal in Los Angeles, two defining names in Y2K streetwear were only too happy to hype up the revival of the low-rise, blinged-out early-aughts energy that’s been a subtle undercurrent in the industry of late. True Religion and Baby Phat, whose respective horseshoe and slinky cat logos once adorned the backsides of an entire generation, staged a runway show celebrating their first collaboration. Naturally, there was a private jet.

Inside the Silver Air hangar, the crowd was an eclectic mix of Y2K 1.0 survivors (including this reporter, representing Millennials in jeans that kept my belly button to myself) and Gen Zers experiencing the period secondhand, while Jaleel White, forever immortalized as Family Matters’ Steve Urkel, served as an unlikely elder statesman. Yume and professional It-friend Justine Skye performed. The evening’s main attraction, however, was Kimora Lee, the larger-than-life model, entrepreneur, and Baby Phat founder, holding court aboard the aircraft.

“It was always about aspiration,” Lee explained from inside the sleek plane, its plush seats piled high with pieces from the co-branded collection. “If you can’t have that huge pink diamond … you can have those jeans.” Her rosy ring, by the way, was enormous, and, like her career in fashion, roughly 30 years old.

Subtlety has no place in this world, then or now. True Religion’s aggressively topstitched denim, with its unmistakable flap pockets, and Baby Phat’s crystal-encrusted sportswear, faux-fur-trimmed minis, and velour tracksuits offered a conspicuous approximation of the turn-of-the-century good life. The message was: You don’t need to own a private plane or sign autographs outside your hotel to dress like someone who might. The clothes did the talking, preferably at considerable volume.

The new collection is similarly unrestrained. Every bottom is low-rise, from bootcut and baggy jeans to a 10-inch micro skirt. There are shrunken baby tees, satin bombers, and enough crystals to require sunglasses at night. It is cheeky, blinged-out, and occasionally bordering on millennium cosplay. Then again, moderation was never the point.

Lee launched Baby Phat in 1999 as an offshoot of then-husband Russell Simmons’s Phat Farm, dressing everyone from Aaliyah and Lil’ Kim to Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys. True Religion, meanwhile, became such a rap world staple that Chief Keef devoted a song to the jeans and 2 Chainz named a mixtape after them. Both owe much of their popularity to Black culture, whose influence on mainstream fashion was frequently more substantial than the industry’s willingness to acknowledge.

Lee, who modeled for Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel as a teenager and wore gifted tweed jackets with jeans to high school, brought Parisian fashion codes to hip-hop’s unapologetic glamour. In doing so, she helped redefine who luxury could speak to, and what it could look like.

“I am a Chanel girl, through and through,” Lee told Vogue. “And I brought that very much to Baby Phat all of my life.”

With Chanel enjoying renewed attention under Matthieu Blazy, Lee’s place in its history feels especially relevant. In September, she released Kimora Lee: On Her Own, a Lifetime documentary revisiting her career, public relationships, and personal struggles. Having reacquired Baby Phat in 2019, she is also among the rare fashion founders to regain control of a company after selling it.

“Normally, you don’t sell a brand and then come back,” she said. Her advice to entrepreneurs hoping to reclaim their creations was characteristically unsentimental: “If you made it once, you can make it again.”

If Baby Phat’s comeback is personal, True Religion’s is increasingly commercial. Having survived two bankruptcies, the denim label expects sales to reach $550 million this year, according to CEO Michael Buckley, with a target of $1 billion within five years. Its owners are reportedly exploring a sale or minority investment valuing the business at close to $1 billion. Nostalgia, it seems, is bankable. No wonder Lee was keen to embroider its jeans with her beloved kitten insignia, which she holds so sacred she has it tattooed on her lower back.

“When people say to us, ‘Oh, back in the heyday of True Religion,’ well, the heyday is now,” chief marketing officer Kristen D’Arcy told Vogue. The company is also, she said, “the largest in sales we’ve ever been, plus the most profitable we’ve ever been.”

Beyond denim, True Religion has courted younger consumers through musicians such as Meghan Thee Stallion, influencers aplenty, and choice collaborations. D’Arcy cited organic appearances by Timothée Chalamet, Kylie Jenner, and Alix Earle as evidence of cultural relevancy, while early access to the Baby Phat offering had already generated strong app sales.

Does it matter than the generation buying into an aesthetic has no firsthand memory of the world that produced it?

For content creator and Love Island USA: Aftersun co-host Tefi Pessoa, the answer is refreshingly uncomplicated. “What True Religion is so good at is ass, and we have lost ass in fashion,” she declared, praising the jeans’ famously flattering rear view. She recalled the vanished mall ecosystem of Baby Phat, Wet Seal, Charlotte Russe, and dELiA*s with affection, crediting Lee as a visionary who paved the way for the likes of Juicy Couture.

For younger customers, the attraction is less about remembering than discovering. The campaign stars Love Island personalities and show attendees Aniya Harvey and Kayda Bosse in a knowing homage to MTV’s Making the Video, a series that premiered before they were born.

Lee sees the generational divide within her own family too. Her daughters, Ming, 26, and Aoki, 24, have inherited pieces from her archive, although their tastes differ: Ming prefers classic dressing, while Aoki embraces low-slung denim. Lee also recalled Rihanna sending her stylist hunting for vintage Baby Phat, proof that the clothes still resonate.

At 51, after navigating professional upheavals and the complicated business of ownership, Lee is no longer simply selling the fantasy of being young, glittering, and rich. She is demonstrating what it means to build a design language, lose control of it, and then reclaim it on her own terms. “I want my girls to see powerful women, beautiful women, women of all ages, who keep going and growing,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m done with anything.”

Perhaps that is the more compelling American Dream on offer with this True Religion and Baby Phat hook-up—not the private jet or the pink diamond, but the power to reclaim your name, your work, and your future. The low rise is back, but Kimora Lee is still moving forward.