TYRA BANKS

“Self-love has very little to do with how you feel about your outer self. It`s about accepting all of yourself. You`ve got to learn to accept the fool in you as well as the part that`s got it goin’ on.”

– TYRA BANKS

Tyra Lynne Banks (born December 4, 1973) is an American model, television host, actress, singer and businessperson.

Banks was born in Inglewood, California, the daughter of Carolyn (née London), a fashion manager and NASA photographer, and Donald Banks, a computer consultant. The couple divorced in 1980, when Banks was 6 years old. However, the relationship between her parents, and between her and her brother Devin Banks (born 1968), stayed friendly. Later, Carolyn married Clifford Johnson; she now goes by Carolyn London-Johnson. Banks attended John Burroughs Middle School and graduated in 1991 from Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles.

Banks began modeling in the 11th grade. She later went to Paris, France to do some runway modeling. Within Banks’ first week in Paris, designers were so entranced by her presence on the runway that she was booked for an unprecedented twenty-five shows – a record in the business for a newcomer. She has done extensive print and/or runway work for fashion/advertising giants, such as Anna Sui, Coors Light, CoverGirl, Badgley Mischka, Bill Blass, Cynthia Rowley, Chanel, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan, Gemma Kahng, H&M, Isaac Mizrahi, Maria Snyder, McDonald’s, Aislinn Dubois Modeling Agency, Michael Kors, Milk, Nicole Miller, Nike, Inc., Oscar de la Renta, Pepsi, Perry Ellis, Randy Kemper, Richard Tyler, Rifat Ozbek, Swatch, Todd Oldham, Tommy Hilfiger, Victoria’s Secret and Yves Saint Laurent. She has appeared on the covers of high-fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Elle.

Banks’ television career began on the fourth season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which she played lead character Will Smith’s old friend Jackie Ames. She made seven appearances in the series. Tyra’s ‘ first big screen role came in 1994 when she co-starred in the drama Higher Learning. She went on to co-star with Lindsay Lohan in the Disney film Life-Size, playing a doll named Eve who comes to life and has to learn how to live in the real world.

Banks was the first African American woman on the covers of GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. In 1997, she received the VH1 award for Supermodel of the Year. That same year, she became the first-ever African American chosen for the cover of the Victoria’s Secret catalog. In 1998, Banks authored a book entitled Tyra’s Beauty, Inside and Out. The book was advertised as a resource for helping women to make the most out of their natural beauty.

Other TV credits include Felicity, MADtv, Nick Cannon’s Wild ‘n Out (in which she was featured as a special guest host and team captain) and The Price Is Right (guest-starring as a “Barker’s Beauty”). She also appeared as a guest in the animated talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast in an episode entitled “Chinatown.” Tyra has also starred in Love Stinks (1999), Love & Basketball (2000), Coyote Ugly (2000) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002).

She has also appeared in several music videos, including Michael Jackson’s “Black or White”, Tina Turner’s “Love Thing”, Mobb Deep’s “Trife Life” and George Michael’s “Too Funky” (with fellow supermodel Linda Evangelista). In 2004, she recorded her first single, “Shake Ya Body,” which had a music video featuring the final six contestants on America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 2. The video was world-premiered on UPN, but the single turned out to be a failure. On America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 2 Banks said, “Singing has been a passion of mine for a long, long time . . . six years on the down low – been ducking in and out of studios cutting tracks.” Later, on her talk show, she said, “I can’t believe I wasted six years of doing something that I didn’t finish . . . I was almost able to release my album T.Y.R.A., but since my music career hit rock bottom, I quit.”

Though “Shake Ya Body” was a failure, record producer Rodney Jerkins told Jet magazine in 2004 that Banks “has what it takes to pull it off…she had a hungriness to want to be in the studio all the time. Some people want to be divas in the studio and work for three or four hours. You had to tell Tyra to stop, or she will keep you going.”^] As for her voice, Jerkins said, “People will be shocked. She can really sing. She’s like between soprano and high-alto. I challenged her vocally. I pushed her, but not too far. I pushed her where vocally it fit the track.”

Banks released a single with NBA player Kobe Bryant, entitled “K.O.B.E.,” which was performed on NBA TV. She also had a single on the Disney movie Life-Size called “Be A Star.”

Banks retired from modeling in May 2005 to concentrate on her television career. She walked the runway for the final time at the 2005 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

Currently, Banks can be seen on television as the hostess, judge and executive producer of The CW Television Network show America’s Next Top Model. In addition, she hosts The Tyra Banks Show, a daytime talk show aimed at younger women, which premiered on September 12, 2005. The show features stories about everyday people mixed in with celebrity interviews, much like the early format of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Under the slogan “Every woman has a story…and it happened to Tyra too,” Banks promotes her show using emotional flashbacks to her own childhood and adolescence. Many of the episodes deal with issues facing women today. Banks and other experts give women advice on fashion, relationships and more. The first two seasons of the show were recorded in Banks’ hometown of Los Angeles but, beginning with the fall 2007 season, the show moved to New York City. In 2008, Banks won the Daytime Emmy Award for her work and production on The Tyra Banks Show.

In late-January 2008, Banks got the go-ahead from The CW Television Network to start work on a new reality television series based on fashion magazines called Stylista. The show premiered on October 22, 2008.

SOURCE: Wikipedia, quotelucy.com

TYRA BANKS IN MOTION

KIMORA LEE SIMMONS

“People should know whatever it is you love to do. I am a living testament to the fact that you can do it.  You can do whatever it is you put your mind to and you can do it in stilettos.”

– KIMORA LEE SIMMONS

Kimora Lee Simmons (born Kimora Lee Perkins on May 4, 1975) is an American model, author, and the president and creative director for Phat Fashions. Formerly creative director of Baby Phat, Simmons became CEO of Phat Fashions after her ex-husband Russell Simmons stepped down.

Simmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She is of Asian and African American descent. Her mother is Joanne Perkins (who was adopted by an American serviceman during the Korean War and renamed Joanne Perkins), who now goes by the Japanese name “Kyoko”, which she asserts was her “full blooded Japanese” mother’s name. Her father is African American Vernon Whitlock Jr., who previously worked as a federal marshal, a social security administrator, and then a barber in St. Louis.

Growing up in the north St. Louis suburb of Florissant, Missouri, Simmons was very self-conscious about being a “geek.” Other children called her “chinky giraffe” because of her height and Asian ancestry. By the time she was 10 years old, she was 5-feet 8-inches tall, and became the target of schoolyard taunts and teasing. With no Asian population in her community, she had difficulty fitting in with the mostly black student body who shunned her because of her Asian ancestry. Hoping to boost her confidence, Simmons’ mother enrolled her daughter in a modeling class when she was eleven years old.

Two years later, at the age of thirteen, she was discovered by Marie-Christine Kollock (a representative for seminal Paris Agency Glamour) at a Model Search in St. Louis (organized by Kay Mitchell) and sent to Paris. Simmons was awarded an exclusive modeling contract with Chanel and just after her thirteenth birthday, to work under the tutelage of famed Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld.

She quickly gained attention in the fashion world when Lagerfeld closed his haute couture show with Simmons, who strutted down the runway decked out as a child bride. “Everything people thought was weird about me before,” Simmons told People Weekly, “was now good”. By age 14, her stature had grown to a height of six feet, and she became a self-professed muse for Lagerfeld. She and three other Lagerfeld models (Bernadette Jurkowski, Shoshanna Fitzgerald and Olga Sobolewska) were dubbed “the four Karlettes”.

On December 20, 1998, she married Russell Simmons and lived in the town of Saddle River, New Jersey. They had two daughters – Ming Lee (born January 2000) and Aoki Lee (born August 2002). Both Ming Lee and Aoki Lee model for Baby Phat Kids Collection.

In 2004 Russell Simmons sold Phat Farm to Kellwood Company for $140 million. When Russell stepped down as CEO of Phat Fashions LLC in September 2007, Kimora — who was already Creative Director of Baby Phat — was promoted by Kellwood to President and Creative Director of Phat Fashions. It is Simmons’ goal to fashion Baby Phat, launched in 1999, into an “aspirational lifestyle brand.” She also stated she wants to get more Baby Phat into discount stores such as TJ Maxx and Goodwill.

A book written by Simmons, Fabulosity: What It Is and How to Get It, was published by HarperEntertainment in February 2006. The book is set to function as a ‘lifestyle manual’ on everything from spirituality and finances to fashion and beauty. As shown on her TV show, she makes all of her executives read her book.

In February 2007, Kimora Lee Simmons Barbie doll was launched, created under the direction of Simmons. She has also launched four perfumes for women: Goddess, Golden Goddess, Seductive Goddess and recently, Baby Phat Fabulosity.

She has appeared in Ginuwine’s video for “In Those Jeans” with model Devon Aoki and Usher’s video for “Nice & Slow”. She has also appeared in the motion picture Beauty Shop along with Queen Latifah. Kimora Lee is also a playable character in the fighting game Def Jam: Fight for NY. She has also appeared in Waist Deep. She was one of the judges in America’s Next Top Model for season one. Simmons has also been a co-host of Sony Television‘s syndicated talk show Life & Style.

By March 2007, Simmons was dating two time Oscar-nominated actor and model Djimon Hounsou and in late March officially filed for divorce from her husband. On August 5, 2007 her reality TV show premiered on Style Network. Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane chronicles her daily life and routine, along with her relationship with her two daughters Ming Lee and Aoki Lee Simmons. It now re-airs on E! Entertainment Television. Season two aired on April 20, 2008 on the Style network. On October 3, 2008, s biographical documentary TV series (E! True Hollywood Story) documented her experiences as an entrepreneur, author, model, and mother. In January 2009, US Magazine reported that Kimora and Hounsou are expecting a child together in 2009. Kimora and Russell got officially divorced on January 28, 2009.

She established the Kimora Lee Simmons Scholarship Fund at her high school alma mater in St. Louis to provide college tuition support for academically successful girls with financial needs and is an active member of youth advocacy organizations including Amfar, The G&P Foundation, Keep a Child Alive, Hetrick-Martin Institute and Rush Philanthropic where she is on the Board of Directors. The mayor of St. Louis presented Simmons the key to the city and named March 18, 2008 “Kimora Day” in St. Louis.

SOURCE: Wikipedia,Tampabay.com

KIMORA LEE SIMMONS IN MOTION

TRACY REESE

” . . . You can spend your whole day wondering about racism, but in most cases I find it is just better to ignore it–rise above racism.”

– TRACY REESE

Tracy Reese was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 12, 1964. Reese ranks as one of the fashion industry’s most successful African-American women whose realm is not relegated to the runway.

In a business where few designer labels seem to make it past their fifth anniversary, Reese has two clothing lines, TR and Plenty, which have been sold at Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, and other top retailers since the mid-1990s. Her company’s sales topped $12 million in 2003, and it launched a Plenty-label home line that same year and a footwear collection the following. Reese has an unerring eye for what women will buy. “I don’t want to design a skirt just because a skirt is needed to go with a particular jacket,” she told Joy Duckett Cain in Essence. “The skirt itself has to make you want to buy it.”

Her mother, Pat, was a modern dance teacher and enrolled Reese and her two sisters in weekend enrichment classes at the city’s art museum. The women in the family also liked to sew and would sometimes hold contests in which they raced to finish an outfit first. The loser had to pay for fabric, and it was here that Reese’s future career direction first emerged. “Although I generally won,” she joked in an interview with another Essence writer, Deborah Gregory, “I still spent every dime I had buying fabric.”

Reese attended Cass Technical High School, the elite public high school in the Detroit system. Students there focused on either the arts or academics and, as Reese recalled in another profile in Essence, “I actually thought I’d be an architect or an interior designer,” she told Vanessa Bush. Cass Tech, she continued, “had a fashion-design department, and I took a couple of classes, but I didn’t take it as my concentration because I thought it was kind of flaky.” But Reese was encouraged by a teacher to apply for a scholarship to a summer program for high-schoolers at New York City’s Parsons School of Design, one of the top U.S. colleges for future fashion-design professionals. She won a slot and enjoyed her summer experience, as well as New York City. After graduating from Cass Tech, she entered Parsons full-time.

Reese earned her design degree in 1984 and found a terrific job right away, as an apprentice to the French designer Martine Sitbon in New York City. She was assigned to Sitbon’s Arlequin line, and Sitbon encouraged her talents and even allowed her to sketch designs, a plumnovice. After two years on the job, Reese decided to strike out on her own, and her father Claud provided some of the start-up funds to launch her own line. “I thought I knew everything, but I learned quickly that I really didn’t and knew I had to learn more about business.” She could not maintain enough revenue to meet her production costs, and was forced to close her business in 1989. assignment for a venture even for an experienced fashion pro. She produced two collections, both of which were well liked by store buyers, and the line was sold in stores such as Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, and Ann Taylor. Reese was just 23 years old at the time. “I had the energy and the drive to run the company,” she recalled in an interview with Julee Greenberg for WWD. “I thought I knew everything, but I learned quickly that I really didn’t and knew I had to learn more about business.” She could not maintain enough revenue to meet her production costs, and was forced to close her business in 1989.

A heartbroken Reese was able to land a job with Perry Ellis Portfolio thanks to Marc Jacobs, her former schoolmate at Parsons. At the time, Jacobs was the vice president of design for the Perry Ellis women’s line, and working at a thriving design firm–one which also had its share of financial ups and downs–was instrumental in teaching Reese the business basics she needed to learn. She also teamed with sportswear designer Gordon Henderson, an African American who had worked for Calvin Klein before launching his own line in the mid-1980s. Henderson, Reese has said, was an important mentor who shared much of his own experience with her about running a successful start-up line.

In the early 1990s, Reese won a head-designer job with new label called Magaschoni. It was owned by Magtague, a Hong Kong manufacturer that produced clothes for Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and other well-known names. She was tapped to design Magaschoni’s bridge, or mid-priced line, and it was not that exciting of a job, she later confessed in the Essence showroom in a building on Seventh Avenue, the center of New York’s Garment District. The line had terrific sales at retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, but Reese was still determined to run her own business again someday.  “It was definitely not my style, but I knew this was the kind of company that could provide me with major backing of my own label,” she said, and once sales hit a respectable $4 million-mark for 1991, Magtague executives gave Reese her own label, “Tracy Reese for Magaschoni.”

She stepped closer to that goal in 1995, when she struck a deal with mass retailer The Limited for her own line. That gave her some of the start-up funds for her new label, Tracy Reese Meridian, a contemporary sportswear line that was launched in the spring of 1996. She had learned much from her previous experience a decade before, but still struggled to meet production costs, and finally her lawyer introduced her to an accountant with ties to textile manufacturers in his native India. Om Batheja invested funds in Meridian, which eventually became just “Tracy Reese.” They then launched a more informal, free-spirited line aimed at younger customers called Plenty. By 2002 Reese had opened a corporate showroom, and sales at her company had more than doubled over the previous year to $12 million. Her collections, which grew to include resort and swimwear lines, were shown during New York Fashion Week, the series of events at Bryant Park tents onto which the world’s fashion journalists and store buyers descend to preview the next season’s looks and place store orders. Reese’s designs collections earned good reviews, and have been featured on the pages of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Lucky.

In late 2004, Reese’s company launched Plenty Home, a line of bedding, curtains, and throws that used many of the same lushly patterned Indian textiles from the original Plenty line. It seemed a natural step, she explained to WWD‘s Greenberg. “When I’m designing the line,” said Reese, “I always think about how I would love to have sheets in these fabrics, curtains in these fabrics.” Shoes and accessories came next, both of which were launched in the fall of 2005.

Reese lives in the Murray Hill area of Manhattan, and is one of a handful of African-American women designers to run their own label. When asked if she had ever encountered racism in the industry, she did tell Essence writer Teri Agins that once she had a booth at fabric trade show in Paris, and was having a hard time with the event-management people. An American colleague saw what was happening, and stepped in to help. “I don’t know the exact reason they initially ignored me,” Reese told Agins. “It could have been racism or maybe it was just the French way. You can spend your whole day wondering about racism, but in most cases I find it is just better to ignore it-rise above racism.”

SOURCE: Answers.com

TRACY REESE IN MOTION

LIYA KEBEDE

Liya Kebede (born January 3, 1978.) is an Ethiopian model who has appeared on the cover of US Vogue twice. According to Forbes, Kebede was eleventh-highest-paid top model in the world.

Kebede was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A film director spotted Kebede while she was attending Lycee Guebre Mariam and introduced her to a French modeling agent. After completing her studies, she moved to France to pursue work through a Parisian agency. Kebede later relocated to New York City. She has remarked that the modeling industry in Ethiopia is quite different from the catwalks on which she is now ubiquitous. In contrast, in Ethiopia she had to provide her own shoes for each runway show.

Kebede’s big break came when Tom Ford asked her for an exclusive contract for his Gucci Fall/Winter 2000 fashion show. Kebede was a finalist in the Miss World supermodel contest and later established a place in fashion’s elite by modeling on the New York, Milan, London and Paris runway circuit. Kebede’s popularity in the fashion industry sky-rocketed when she appeared on the cover the May 2002 edition of Paris Vogue which dedicated the entire issue to her.

Kebede has been seen on the covers of Italian, Japanese, American, French and Spanish Vogue, V, Flair, i-D and Time’s Style & Design. Kebede has been featured in ad campaigns including those for Gap, Yves Saint-Laurent, Victoria’s Secret, Emanuel Ungaro, Tommy Hilfiger, Revlon, Dolce & Gabbana, Escada and Louis Vuitton. In 2003, Kebede was named the newest face of Estée Lauder cosmetics, the first Ethiopian to serve as their representative in the company’s 57-year history^. Her contract was rumored to be for $3 million dollars.

In 2005, Kebede was appointed as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. She also appeared in a group montage on a rare (as of recent years) group montage of up and coming supermodels.

In summer of 2006 she was also one of the very few non-white models to have been given a cover of American Vogue, the issue highlighted her humanitarian work.

In July 2007, earning at an estimated total of $2.5 million in the past 12 months, Forbes named her eleventh in the list of the World’s 15 Top-Earning Supermodels. Kebede has also had minor roles in two films: The Good Shepherd and Lord of War. In 2008, Kebede was featured on one of the four covers of Vogue Italia’s all Black Issue.

Kebede married Ethiopian hedge fund manager Kassy Kebede in 2000 and they have two children together; son Suhul (b. 2001) and daughter Raee (b. August 2005). As of 2007, the family resides in New York City.

SOURCE: Wikipedia

ALEK WEK

Alek Wek (born 16 April 1977) is a Sudanese model who appeared on the catwalks at the age of 18 in 1995. She is from the Dinka ethnic group in the Sudan, but in 1991 she and some family members fled to Britain to escape the civil war between the Muslim north and the Christian south of the Sudan. She later moved to the United States.

She was born the seventh of nine children in Wau in Southern Sudan in 1977. The exact date is unknown. When she was preparing to emigrate from Sudan, her mother picked the date April 16, which occurs in the rainy season during which she was born. She says her name means “Black Spotted Cow”.

Wek was discovered at an outdoor market in London in 1995 in Crystal Palace, south London, by a Models 1 scout. She first received attention when she appeared in the music video for “GoldenEye” by Tina Turner, in 1995 and from there entered the world of fashion as one of its top models. She was signed to Ford Models in 1996 and was also seen in the “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” music video by Janet Jackson that year. She was named “Model of the Year” in 1997 by MTV.

Amongst other things she has done advertisements for Issey Miyake, Moschino, Victoria’s Secret and make-up company Clinique as well as walked the runway for high-profile fashion designers John Galliano, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein and Ermanno Scervino. In 2002 she made her acting debut in The Four Feathers as Sudanese princess Aquol.

Wek also designs a range of designer handbags called “Wek 1933”, which are available throughout selected Selfridges department stores. The year refers to the year her father was born.

She is a member of the U.S. Committee for Refugees’ Advisory Council, and is helping to raise awareness about the situation in Sudan, as well as the plight of refugees worldwide.

In 2007, she released an autobiography, Alek, documenting her journey from a childhood of poverty in Sudan to the catwalks of Europe.

In Herb Ritts photographed her for a 1999 calendar in a Joanne Gair body painting that was a highlight of Gair’s first retrospective.

Wek has also been a guest on Tyra banks show.

SOURCE: Wikipedia