Born in El Paso, Texas, Jimenez is the daughter of sculptor Luis Jiménez and graphic designer Vicky Balcou. By the age of five, she was sewing doll clothes and fixing her own hems.[citation needed]
After her father's sudden death in 2006, Jimenez moved to Santa Fe, NM from New York City.
Vogue discovered Jimenez as "the scoop" and consistently has acknowledged her as being at the forefront of the new avant-garde as well as one of the top 10 American Designers in the independent realm.[1] Her designs have appeared in the pages of Harper's Bazaar,[1]Elle,[1]Dutch,[1]Black Book,[1]Paper Mag,[1]Jane,[1] and Trace.[1]
In 2007 Jimenez was a contestant on the fourth season of Project Runway, a reality show on Bravo in which designers compete against each other in various fashion challenges to win $100,000 to create their own fashion line, among other prizes. Jimenez had been picked to appear on the first season of the show but opted out to avoid separating from her young daughter and because of a scheduling conflict.[2] Jimenez was eliminated in the show's sixth episode.[citation needed]
In a Project Runway testimonial, Jimenez disclosed that she was the victim of a motor-vehicle impact as a pedestrian. She ran into the path of a Peugeot 205 and cracked her skull open "3, almost four inches". She made a significant recovery.[citation needed]
In 2012 Jimenez participated in the first season of Project Runway: All Stars but was eliminated in the first episode.[3]