What does the cat logo on this Baby Phat piece tell me?
The curved cat is Max, Kimora Lee Simmons's Siamese, and it has been on Baby Phat since the brand launched in 1999 as a womenswear line off Phat Farm.
It tells you the brand and almost nothing about the year. Baby Phat relaunched in December 2019 using the same cat, so the logo dates a piece only when read together with the cut, the label and the hardware.
What the cat is on
Baby Phat began with low-rise jeans and tops carrying a rhinestoned curved cat, and the house silhouettes that followed are still the fastest way to recognise the label across a room: miniaturised baby-doll T-shirts, cropped puffer jackets lined with faux fur, and pastel velour tracksuits, all wearing the same cat.
If you are looking at one of those four shapes with the cat on it, you are almost certainly looking at the brand at its most characteristic. If you are looking at a piece where the cat is a small embroidered patch on an otherwise plain garment, look harder at the label — that treatment is common on the later line.
The dates that matter
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1998 | Kimora Lee Simmons is handed a womenswear T-shirt prototype from Phat Farm and finds it a scaled-down men's garment |
| 1999 | Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons launches: low-rise jeans and tops with the rhinestoned cat |
| 2000 | First solo show at New York Fashion Week, streamed to Times Square; Simmons becomes president and creative director |
| Mid 2000s | Peak cultural moment, ranked the most sought-after ticket of New York Fashion Week by the New York Daily News |
| 2019 | Rihanna buys an entire Baby Phat archive from a collector; the brand relaunches in December |
What it asks on the resale market today
| Category | Listings priced | Cheapest | Median | Dearest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outerwear: jackets, coats, puffers | 19 | $18.00 | $50.00 | $250.00 |
| Bags, purses, clutches | 24 | $9.00 | $37.50 | $375.00 |
| Denim | 29 | $7.00 | $25.00 | $95.00 |
| Everything named Baby Phat | 219 | $5.00 | $30.00 | $380.00 |
Outerwear is the money. A cropped faux-fur-lined puffer is a garment nobody else was making in that exact register, and it prices like it; denim, the thing the brand actually launched with, sits at $25.00 because low-rise jeans in a fashionable size are not scarce.
Our judgment on where the value is going: the pieces that will hold are the ones that are unmistakably of their moment — the fur-collared puffer, the full velour set, the logo-plate bag. A plain tee with a small cat is a brand, not an object.
Last verified 1 September 2026 against 219 live US Baby Phat listings in the CJ product feed, all of which carried a usable price. Peer-to-peer asks of $500 or more are excluded as seller placeholders, as are repdigit asks such as $999 and $9,999. Asking prices are what sellers want on this date; they are not sold prices.
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Frequently asked about Baby Phat
What is the Baby Phat logo?
A curved cat in profile, usually applied in rhinestones or embroidered, often accompanied by the words baby phat in a script wordmark. Kimora Lee Simmons based it on her pet Siamese cat, Max.
When was Baby Phat made?
The brand launched in 1999 as a womenswear offshoot of the menswear label Phat Farm, with Kimora Lee Simmons as designer and, from 2000, president and creative director. It defined the early 2000s, went quiet, and was relaunched in December 2019, so both old and new stock circulates.
How much is vintage Baby Phat worth?
Across 219 live US resale listings the median ask is $30.00, ranging from $5.00 to $380.00. Outerwear and bags carry the top of the market; jeans and tops sit near the bottom.
Is Baby Phat still being made?
Yes. The brand was relaunched in December 2019 under Kimora Lee Simmons and current pieces reuse the cat logo, which is exactly why the logo alone does not date a garment.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Baby Phat — the 1999 launch as a Phat Farm offshoot, Kimora Lee Simmons as designer then president and creative director, the rhinestoned curved cat logo inspired by her Siamese cat Max, the 2000 New York Fashion Week show, the house silhouettes, Rihanna buying an archive in 2019 and the December 2019 relaunch.
- CJ Affiliate product feeds, US advertisers, queried 1 September 2026 — every price figure on this page is computed from that pull.
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