Nene Leakes is enjoying her celebrity and all of its success! At the moment, she is the most visible reality housewife, with plenty of projects on her calendar. For one, she's the only original member of the Real Housewives of Atlanta and to this date, the show is the most successful in the franchise. Glee and The New Normal are shows she can also brag about. Keep reading to see how Mrs. Leakes is continuing to build her empire.
After successfully conquering reality television, and acting in major television shows, Nene is now adding fashion designer to her resume. She recently debuted her clothing line on HSN and it sold out immediately. In her interview with Pose magazine, she discussed why it's important for her to design clothing for curvy women and what she has in store for her brand...
On starting her clothing line:
The first reason why I wanted to do a clothing line is because when I would go out, I would have so many curvy women come up to me and say, "Wow, you lost so much weight!" They all thought I was a big girl. The television really does make you look a lot bigger than you are. On television, I look a lot bigger than I really am. But big girls would write to me and ask me where I got my clothing from. I thought, there must be a void in the market for the curvy girl. There are many fashion lines, so I wondered what can I do to be a part of the fashion world? The one thing I came up with was selling larger sizes. Lots of today's designers don't offer larger sizes. There are a lot of larger women who want to look stylish. That was my focus, to really cover the curvy girl. When HSN approached me to do the line, I said I can't do the line unless I can include the curvy girl. They were interested in me doing smaller sizes. We came to the agreement that I could do small sizes and larger sizes. We offer sizes 2-24 in the line.
On why it was important to make sure all women could wear her clothing:
That was really important to me. As far as designing was concerned, that was the most difficult part. What can a size 24 woman wear that a size 2 woman would want to wear? Those were some of our most difficult meetings. We had to figure out a way to make the clothing stylish so that the larger woman could wear them too.
On her Fall HSN line and you can expect:
I'll have nineteen pieces in October and I think this run will have our capes. One of the things a curvy girl can wear is a cape. Many of them told me they would like a coat. I was thinking, a coat is nice, but we don't have time to create that before October, so we made the cape. The cape is really fabulous. Every girl can wear a cape when it's cold outside.
On adding shoes and accessories:
I am so obsessed with shoes; I don't know what to do with myself. I would love to have a shoe line. I would love to do a line with younger women, ages 16-25. I have an idea for a great line for the younger crowd. Handbags? It's possible. I would love to do a line of handbags but I am not as obsessed with handbags as I am with doing a line of home goods. I want to have my own plates and glasses. I love those things.
On ending her friendship with cast mate Cynthia Bailey and not knowing her before the show:
Well, that's definitely what the producers want. They want the viewers to believe we are all friends because we are on the show together. Now, Cynthia and I did form a real friendship over the years we were on the show together. I don't think the viewers know that I never knew her until she signed up to do the show. I never met her, I didn't know anything about her.
On being portrayed unfairly and as the villain of the show:
I think people definitely misunderstand. If you sat down and talked to Cynthia for real, she would be like, Nene is super cool. I don't go out a lot. I am really private. I am very chill. I understand why the girls on the show are made to come after me. I am the original. I am the only girl left there. They feel, she is the show, so we should probably come over there and get with her. A lot of these girls come on the show and create a show that is in their head. I come on the show and I play Nene, because it's a reality show.
To read the interview in its entirety, visit Pose.
Source: Pose Magazine and HSN
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