He is also chairman of Rush Communications, whose holdings include Phat Farm.

Right now, they added, the licensee is returning $15 million to Phat Farm - potentially making the buyout a very good deal indeed.

Here at Phat Farm, the Japanese women are giving some baggy shorts intense study.

"We like the things of the black people," one of the Japanese women tells me at Phat Farm.

They continued to work together on their Phat Farm and Baby Phat clothing lines.

I'll still head out on my regular shopping runs with Justice, and I may try on some of the more mature outfits at Phat Farm.

Probably the oldest label is Russell Simmons' Phat Farm.

His best-known recent success has been Phat Farm, the hip-hop-flavored clothing line he founded in 1992.

"But because of his good taste and everybody's knowledge of that," he said, Phat Farm made an exception.

No, what the Phat Farm really needed on its first day - 20 days behind schedule - was organization (and a touch more attitude).