She’s leaving 2000s-era toxicity behind — and making classic fashion modern.
Once upon a time, Nicky Hilton routinely turned New York City sidewalks into runways as she and her fabulous friends entered and exited the most exclusive nightclubs, followed by a gaggle of photographers whose snapshots got prime placement the next morning on Page Six.
These days, she’s usually in bed before 9 p.m.
Things change with age and with kids, and Hilton, now 38, lives a life guided by her roles as a mom and a businesswoman. On a recent rainy morning, she called KCM from her Manhattan apartment, having just returned from school drop-off for her daughters, 5-year-old Lily-Grace and 4-year-old Teddy, whom she shares with husband James Rothschild.
“I actually just started being a carpool mom recently, which I really enjoy,” she says. “It’s so cute to hear these little conversations in the back and be a fly on the wall.”
To an entire industry of gossip reporters in the early 2000s, listening in on private moments between Hilton and her sister, Paris, would have been a gold mine. With their splashy pedigree as hotel heiresses and their propensity for press, the sisters reinvented the idea of celebrity before they hit their 20s. Many dismissed them as “famous for being famous” — and that’s downright nice compared to some of the other things people said.
“When I look back at how that group of girls was treated by the media, it’s so horrific, and it would not happen today,” Hilton tells us. She’s talking about crass, sexist jokes that were nearly ubiquitous at the time but would make us cringe now. Documentaries like her sister’s This is Paris, TV series like the Monica Lewinsky-produced Impeachment, and the entire conversation surrounding Britney Spears’s conservatorship are relitigating this period and underscoring the problematic way our society depicted young women.
“Paris and I talked about this a while ago on her podcast, with that whole Sarah Silverman situation at the VMAs and how she just brutalized and humiliated these young girls who weren’t doing anything wrong. They were going through some heavy stuff, but to be so cruel and mean was just really, really sad,” Hilton says.
Silverman has since apologized for the public takedown, and Hilton is relieved to see the cultural tides change. “I’m happy that type of humor is a thing of the past because I wouldn’t want my children — or anyone’s children — to endure that.”
The insults are mostly a thing of the past, but the Hiltons have stuck around for more than two decades. It’s now clear they were pioneers of the influencer culture we didn’t yet know was coming — and they did it without the infrastructure surrounding personal branding today.
“That era was the time before girls had the glam team, the stylist, the manager, the publicist,” Hilton says. “It was really people wearing what they wanted to wear, as opposed to today, when everyone is just styled from head to toe. I mean, I see some of these girls getting styled to go do errands or go to the airport. It’s very contrived. What’s so sweet about back then was it was so effortless. If we liked it, we wore it.”
And now, a whole generation is liking the Y2K aesthetic all over again. While some of her getups from those days make Hilton wince now (“One of my least favorite trends, which all of the L.A. girls were guilty of, was the short dresses with the Ugg boots”), she still appreciates the elements she loved most. In fact, she’s got a new emerald-green Juicy Couture sweatsuit hanging in her closet as we speak.
Hilton’s New Year’s resolution for 2021 was to “buy less, waste less, and lead a more sustainable life,” so she’s cut down on how frequently she indulges in a shopping spree. But she does have an enviable archive to fall back on, ranging from classic Chanel jackets passed down from her mother and grandmother to her own pieces from 20 years ago.
Hanging on to her 2000s-era treasures recently paid off when Hilton, her sister, and their mom held a live auction of personal memorabilia for charity. Hilton hunted through her storage and tracked down one of the bags she designed for Japanese brand Samantha Thavasa back in 2004. “It went for over $5,000,” she says. “And 100 percent of that went to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, so I’m very happy I hung on to it.”
Though she savors reliving the fashion and the frantic energy of those days when she and Paris were queens of the club scene, Hilton says their quality sister time looks a little different lately. “It’s not about going out and late nights,” she tells us. “It’s more about her coming over and picking up the kids from school or taking them out for ice cream.”
Hilton’s older daughter just started kindergarten, which means she now has a school uniform that provides a blessed shortcut for getting-ready time in the mornings. It’s a full-circle moment for Hilton, who had a seminal experience in developing her personal style thanks to the confines of her own uniform back in the day.
“I went to Sacred Heart on the Upper East Side, an all-girls Catholic high school where we had a uniform, and the only thing we were allowed to pick out was our shoes,” she explains. “And, of course, they couldn’t have a heel. So I stumbled upon the French Sole flagship walking home one day and just sort of fell in love with their shoes.”
She’s since gone from customer to collaborator, designing her own line of footwear for the brand, which allows her to riff on the classic ballet flats she’s loved for years. “When I would see old photos of Audrey Hepburn, she would be in the chicest cigarette pant, turtleneck, and a ballet flat,” Hilton says. “It’s the perfect combination of comfort and elegance.”
Hilton loves naming her designs for women she admires, like the bold animal print for her sister Paris. The pair named for their mother, Kathy, is “by far our best-seller,” she says. It could be because they’re one of the most timeless styles in the collection — or maybe because Kathy has recently become a breakout star in her own right as a scene-stealing addition to the latest season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Hilton initially recoiled at her mother’s TV venture. “My sister and I were not happy with this decision,” she says, “and we joke with each other that if there was not a global pandemic going on, and [our mom] wasn’t so bored, she would not sign up for this in a million years.” But now that she’s seen the show and watched Kathy not only rise above the drama but also become a fan-favorite, she’s laughing along with the rest of us.
She also confirms that the zany, living-in-her-own-world behavior we love Kathy for is an everyday occurrence: “When she’s trying to reach me, my sister, or my aunt [Kyle Richards], she’ll leave a message on Instagram,” Hilton says. “I don’t think she knows how to DM. It’s a comment: ‘Please call me.’”
It’s no surprise that she would be protective of how a reality show that thrives on squabbling might depict her mother. Among friends, Hilton is known as “the gatekeeper” — the one who’s always on guard for bad influences. “I’ve had a front-row seat to this my whole life, watching my sister get taken advantage of or used, and I’ve seen it so many times from friends, employees, people she works with,” Hilton says. “You can tell immediately who’s there for the right reasons and the wrong reasons, who’s there for the good times and the not-so-good.”
As for the relationship between sisters, it’s never wavered. “We don’t fight,” Hilton says of Paris. “We are each other’s biggest cheerleaders, and I think growing up so close and being thrown into this world [of celebrity] and having each other was so special. I can’t imagine doing any of it without her by my side.”
The duo recently hit up their old stomping grounds at New York Fashion Week, and Hilton was thrilled to get all glammed up again after the worst of Covid-19 lockdowns. She hopes there’s a lot more of that in her immediate future.
“The world is forever changed. The way we travel, eat, shop — it’s all different now,” she says. “But I think people are definitely ready to retire some of their slippers and sweatsuits, and there is a pent-up energy to go out and dress up. Just the interaction of being with people is good for the soul.”
