Her style impact is irrefutable.
How much do you really know about Y2K trends? Sure, it’s fun to test drive low-rise jeans and whip out a digital camera at parties — but there’s a complex celebrity ecosystem behind these once-forgotten fads. We’re talking history! Cultural context! Baby tee misinformation! To fully understand this ongoing renaissance, we can look to the patron saint of polarizing 2000s clothing choices: FASHION Summer 2024 cover star Paris Hilton.
You see, today, Y2K aesthetics are so ubiquitous that it can be easy to forget where they came from. Lower back tattoos are cool again. Every It girl’s eyebrows have been plucked into oblivion. Unnecessary belts are unavoidable. But just a few short years ago, public opinion deemed the celebs synonymous with these trends to be passé.
“I basically invented Y2K fashion,” Hilton jokes in her FASHION Summer 2024 cover interview. “I am the mood board. There’s the blueprint, and I’m the pink print!” Allow the evidence to speak for itself.
During her time as a Simple Life starlet, Hilton provided the unforgettable imagery of scrunched-up jeans stuffed inside colossally large Moon Boots. She sported impressively thin brows with mismatched barrettes scattered in her hair. She slung her jeans as low as possible and frequently frolicked in full velour tracksuits. For better or worse, she committed to the bit.
The 2020s have marked the return — and new reverence — for Y2K It girls. From Britney Spears’s recent viral memoir to Lindsay Lohan’s welcome return to acting, there’s a sense of newfound appreciation for the icons of decades past. What’s more, this collective nostalgia hit its peak when Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie (the OG messy best friend duo) announced they would soon be hitting our screens once again with a new reality series.
Thankfully, much has changed in the past 20 years. We’ve managed to reclaim misogynistic terms that once dominated the zeitgeist, while social media has taken the power away from paparazzi and offered agency to young stars. Not to mention, pop culture’s aughts-era revival has brought with it new representation for body inclusivity. But there’s still something uniquely special about scrolling through the digi cam snapshots from years ago.
And really, where would 2000s fashion be without Paris Hilton? She might not have been the first or the only one to do it. But she was arguably the most memorable. Below, we’re revisiting some of her highly debated looks.