Russell Simmons has sold Phat Fashions, into a partnership with clothing company, Kellwood.Under the terms of the deal, Phat Fashions becomes a subsidary of Kellwood.Simmons received $140 million dollars in cash and will continue to manage the company on a day-to-day basis, while Simmons’ wife, Kimora Lee, will continue as principle creative aribiter at Baby Phat.”We have a vision to make an institution,” Simmons told AllHipHop.com. “I hope that this sets off a buying spree of clothing companies.”Kellwood, which handles such lines as XOXO, Liz Claiborne, Calvin Klein, Nautica and Polo by Ralph Lauren, is a publicly traded company.”The numbers that we [urban clothing companies] have been putting up have been ignored for too long,” Simmons said. “This is a great opportunity to really build a company, because of their resources.”Phat Farm was launched over a decade ago. The company posted over $300 million in revenues last year and launched the Run Athletics and Def Jam University clothing lines last year.”My vision is so great that it could not have been accomplished without the support of a public company [like Kellwood]” Simmons said.
