How Lionel’s daughter, Sofia Richie, became the fashion world’s latest obsession
In the 1960s, the route to becoming an ‘It girl’ was fairly straightforward. You’d be pretty (bonus points if you were well connected), stylish (looking good in a mini skirt was a prerequisite) and date a famous man (Andy Warhol would do). These days, the formula is so complicated, the field so crowded and the criteria so nebulous that, had Edie Sedgwick been born in 1998, it’s unlikely we’d ever have heard of her.
Sofia Richie was born in 1998, and if you haven’t heard of her, you haven’t been paying attention. Richie, 25, is the fashion world’s current crush, a golden confluence of enviable style, famous parentage and judiciously curated social media feeds whose every post is something of an obsession to her 10.9 million Instagram followers and 3.5 million TikTok followers. Numbers-wise, this may not give her the clout of a Kardashian, but for a demographic of women whose style is more Carolyn Bessett Kennedy than Kim, Richie represents the aspirational American dream. You wouldn’t catch Richie doing a sex tape: she’s too busy wafting around the internet in white shirts, taupe knits and dresses by The Row.
Obviously, she’s a nepo baby. Her mother is the actress Diane Alexander; her father the multi-platinum artist Lionel Richie, whose 1984 hit, Hello, lingered at number one on the UK charts for six long weeks. Her parents divorced when she was six, but if there was any acrimony, you wouldn’t know it: her mum is her “best friend” and her dad is her “role model”. Indeed, by Hollywood standards, both parents seem unusually sensible: when Richie, then 19, started dating a then 34 year-old Scott Disick, father Lionel told The Telegraph: “Is it going to be for life? I don’t know. But for right now it’s just a phase and I’m going to stand real still in the corner, and not make too much noise.”
Happily for Lionel, the couple split in 2020, with Disick going on to date a string of younger women, much to the chagrin of his ex-partner Kourtney Kardashian, with whom he shares three children. It was a far wiser Richie who in 2021 started dating Elliot Grainge, a childhood friend whose father, Lucian Grainge, just happens to be chief executive of Universal Music, the label to which Lionel is signed (other clients include The Beatles, Taylor Swift and Rihanna). “I would always tell him [Elliot], ‘whoever you end up with is the luckiest girl’,” she gushed in an interview with the digital fashion publication Who What Wear. “And then I realised… Why can’t that lucky girl be me?”
If Richie has a tendency to speak like Giselle in Enchanted, her saccharine tones only endear her to her fanbase even more. There is nothing arch or sarcastic about Richie: she seems eternally sunny, with a disposition that can seem particularly alluring in troubled times. “My entire platform has been based on this kind of ‘best friend energy’ – just being honest with the people that follow me,” she told Vogue. She’s Reese Witherspoon for the digital age, with the same heart-shaped face, drive and entrepreneurial ambition.
Like Witherspoon, Richie has played her hand with shrewd aplomb. She has credited her elder sister, Nicole, with giving her sound advice: as star of hit TV show, The Simple Life, Nicole knows everything there is to know about navigating Hollywood fame. Certainly, Richie has left no detail to chance in plotting her ascent as a fashion influencer. Her summer wedding went viral for being surprisingly chic: the bride wore three custom-made Chanel gowns (Google searches for ‘Chanel wedding dress’ rose 500 per cent over the following 24 hours), and was married at Hotel du Cap Eden Roc in Antibes. Ever bringing the ‘best friend energy’ her fans adore, she documented what went on behind the scenes with humorous honesty. Vogue, meanwhile, documented the rest.
It’s this winning mix of stylishness and relatability that has industry experts pegging Richie as the next big mega-brand, with the potential to be a Gwyneth Paltrow or Selena Gomez. She already has brand partnerships with Prada Beauty, Jo Malone and David Yurman in the bank, and is plotting a lifestyle brand, according to a December interview in Porter magazine. “My true focus is designing, and 2024 is the beginning of me really building onto that SRG [Sofia Richie Grainge] brand,” she said, adding that it would incorporate fashion, beauty, interiors and an SRG product line.
To these categories, she can also add childrenswear. At 25, she has just revealed she’s six months pregnant with a baby girl (via a lavish photoshoot and staged announcement in Vogue, naturally). Already, her pregnancy style is making waves. Like all of her best looks, its appeal is that it’s easy to recreate: think oversized white shirt, comfy sweatpants, minimal makeup and slick bun accessorised with tasteful hoop earrings. At a time when the ‘mob wife aesthetic’ is dominating the trend cycle, Richie offers something more achievable and low-key: ‘classic rich wife’, if you like. The world awaits news of the baby shower, babymoon and nursery reveal with baited breath. Mindless escapism? Absolutely. But we all need a bit of that.
