Fashion designer and model Kimora Lee Simmons has denied claims that her fashion business was financed by her husband Tim Leissner - a disgraced banker with links to 1MDB.
Simmons told WWD.com that her entry-level designer label Kimora Lee Simmons was self-funded,
"I fund my own business... I've been in the fashion industry since (I was) 12, modeling and all that.
"So all my money, not that I want to say it that way, this is my third marriage that I’m on so, no, my husband has nothing to do with my professional life," she said.
Simmons was responding to a report by the New York Post which claimed that the Kimora Lee Simmons brand could become a "casualty" of an international graft probe.
Leissner was widely reported to be involved in efforts to raise billions of dollars for 1MDB, netting Goldman Sachs and himself a hefty commission.
Disservice to fashion industry
However, he resigned as Goldman Sachs' Southeast Asia chairperson in February last year, allegedly over an unauthorised reference letter to a financial institution in Luxembourg in relation to Malaysian businessman Jho Low.
According to the New York Post, it was "widely believed" that Leissner had financed the launch of the Kimora Lee Simmons fashion line, noting that Simmons had an "unusually well-funded infrastructure".
The website for the brand shows that Simmons was selling blouses that cost up to US$595 (RM2,539) each.
On whether she had consulted Leissner for business advice, Simmons said that wasn't really the case.
"He's a financial person and I'm a fashion person, so I wouldn't say that really. And I've been doing this for kind of a long time.
"Probably more my young girls (14 and 17) give me a little more fashion advice," she told WWD.com.
She said the report by the New York Post was a disservice to the fashion industry, and that it was an attack on her brand.- Mkini
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