Vanessa Simmons is proof that the oldest sibling is often the overachiever. BET recently sat down with the 33-year-old mother, model and fashion designer among other things to discuss all of the power moves she’s been making since growing up literally in front of the camera from one of “Daddy’s Girls” to a grown woman.
Simmons just wrapped up a debut of her fashion line Bad Butterfly at LA Fashion Week, a project she created with fellow Project Runway alum Candice Cuoco. She talks about the line which is described as “celebrating women who dress to conquer” and what the butterfly symbol means to her:
“[The butterfly] is symbolic of how we as women are ever-evolving, ever-changing and how we become more powerful through our experiences and our stories.”
“And ‘bad’ doesn’t mean bad. Bad means good… like badass.”
Simmons says that she hopes the line helps women to not only “look pretty but feel powerful” and she feels personally her job in life is to empower and inspire women to be all they can be.
Speaking of empowering women, Simmons is clear that her first priority is to her 3-year-old daughter, Ava, whom she is raising with partner, Mike Wayans. Crediting Ava as her “best accomplishment” she says she hopes she can be a good example to her daughter, despite the conflicting messages that sometime fill the world:
“I want her to have a positive image to look up to. There’s a lot of riff-raff going on in the world – some of it’s fun, some of it’s good – but I want to make sure I set a positive example for my daughter so she sees that at home.”
When it comes to raising Ava, Simmons knows firsthand what can come with having a celebrated last name and speaks of how coming from a famous family has impacted being able to develop her own identity in her career:
“Having the last name is both a blessing and – I won’t say a curse, it’s not a curse – but a blessing and a hindrance.”
The hindrance? “People don’t allow [the Simmons kids] to grow at a normal rate,” according to Simmons. She reveals that she and her siblings have often felt pressure from the public to have certain accomplishments up under their belts and how that pressure doesn’t allow them to learn, live and love at their own pace:
“You came from this family, you should be a unicorn already.”
“It takes time to grow that horn; it takes time to become a unicorn, you have to give us that time.”
Simmons is definitely making the best use of her time and multi-tasking to accomplish her goals which include a partnership with Colgate, being creator and co-owner of Miss Teenage California and filming a third season of Growing Up Hip-Hop. How does she do it all? By reminding herself of advice given by the coolest person she say she knows, father “Reverend Run” Simmons:
“Do your best and forget the rest. We can get so wrapped up, trying to do so much, trying to hit all these goals, but honestly the only thing we can do is just do our best and let everything else fall where it may.”
You can read the feature in its entirety here.
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