Many of the era’s It girls, from Britney to Madonna, wore their Juicy track pants too long so the hems would get dirty trailing underUgg boots or Havaiana flip flops, but none made the sets look quite as appealing as Paris Hilton. The patron saint of party girls, she embodied the Juicy Couture lifestyle like a modern day Marie Atoinette. She was reared in the white marble Waldorf Astoria and the manses of Beverly Hills, but unlike her on-screen progenitor in Clueless, Hilton would never have been caught dead in the Valley in Alaïa. She would be at Teddy’s and she would be wearing Juicy Couture. Hilton could afford couture, but chose to flit about the world in a $200 tracksuit instead. Millennium style was no longer a this or that proposition.
Nowhere was that more apparent than in the April 2003 issue of Vogue. For a spread titled “Juicy/Couture,” Sally Singer took Skaist-Levy and Nash-Taylor to the couture shows in Paris, introducing them to their idols, Karl Lagerfeld, Valentino Garavani, and John Galliano. The designers defined the moment as “their golden ticket” but as Singer noted, Juicy Couture was everyone else’s golden ticket, worn as it was by celebrities and real women across America. Even Galliano, whom Pam and Gela got to meet, copped to wearing Juicy for his jogs by the Seine.
“What makes Juicy special is that, although the clothes are not fashion, they are the perfect complement to fashion,” wrote Singer. “They are worn by, and made by, women who follow the trends, the couture, the whole deal.” Juicy Couture branded itself “for nice girls who like stuff,” a catchy reduction of their whole schtick. It was glamour for when you didn’t feel glamorous, campiness for when you weren’t in the mood to dazzle in a dress made of three million feathers, and comfortable clothing made in the spirit of couture. If that doesn’t seem totally right for right now, I don’t know what does.
At Christian Dior… Wearing bits of Marni and Juicy Couture, with John Galliano.
Photographed by Robert Fairer, Vogue, April 2003
Air kisses at Valentino… With Va-Va Valentino; Carlos Souza is in the background.
Photographed by Robert Fairer, Vogue, April 2003
At Didier Ludot… Scoping vintage couture at Paris’s premier boutique, the Juicys pass on the overpriced frocks.
Photographed by Robert Fairer, Vogue, April 2003
With Christian Lacroix… whose show proved to be the ladies’ favorite of the week: “In a fantasy world, we’d buy it all.”
Photographed by Robert Fairer, Vogue, April 2003“Couture Diary: Juicy/Couture,” by Sally Singer, photographed by Robert Fairer, was published in the April 2003 issue of the magazine.