Dorit Kemsley is more than a housewife.
The "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star founded swimwear line Beverly Beach in 2017.
Before she joined the "Real Housewives" cast in 2016, she worked fashion as a marketer and as a swimwear designer. Kemsley, 44, studied marketing design and communications at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut and spent time abroad at the University of Florence in Italy. It was after college that a career in swimwear took off.
"I took a job in an international marketing position for a very successful swimwear company, and they brought me on board to expand their sales internationally," she tells Insider.
The job was supposed to last just six months, but she ended up staying in the industry for 10 years. After that, she came back to New York and launched her own swim and resort wear collection, Dorit International, in 2009. She ran that company for about four years, then started a family after meeting her husband Paul.
In 2017, after she joined the "Real Housewives" franchise and Paul encouraged her to reenter the design world, she launched the swim and resortwear brand Beverly Beach. Celebrities have rocked her suits, including Serena Williams on the cover of Allure in 2019.
The entrepreneur is currently contending with a medical setback: multiple outlets reported in early December that Kemsley, along with fellow castmates Kyle Richards and Kathy Hilton, tested positive for COVID-19. Sources told the publication that the women were "recovering at home" and none had serious symptoms.
In an interview with Insider conducted earlier this year, Kemsley talks about the lessons she's learned throughout her career and gives five key pieces of advice that have helped her advance as a television personality and fashion designer.