Owning It
With
Sofia Richie Grainge
Social-media sensation SOFIA RICHIE GRAINGE loves to “have an open conversation”. Here, she gets candid with ANNABEL BROG about the proposal she’d been waiting for, appreciating fashion designer Nicole’s sisterly advice, and building her own soon-to-launch lifestyle empire
Sofia Richie Grainge’s journey to fashion royalty may seem like it was inevitable, but her childhood dreams were very different. The LA-based model, influencer and soon-to-be designer has seduced brands and followers alike with her understated, ultra-luxe style – and that was even before she had the certified fashion wedding of 2023. Looking back, however, her passions lay elsewhere. “I rode horses and played soccer for LA’s Eagles Soccer Club. My dream was to play soccer professionally, but I ended up fracturing my hip at 15, so that dream died,” she says. It was particularly heart-breaking given she had just been scouted to try out for the US Olympic team, but she’s still grateful to have grown up focused on those pursuits. “I think that playing soccer and riding horses gave me a real childhood.”
A “real childhood” was something her parents – legendary singer Lionel Richie and designer Diane Alexander – prioritized for her, and Richie Grainge is appreciative of both the intention and the way in which it fell short. “I knew that, back at home, I had my normal childhood life,” she recalls. “But if I were to step outside… I had that understanding of the bigger picture: my dad’s this megastar, my sister [Nicole Richie] is a TV star.”
A life in the public eye, then, was unavoidable. A career out of the spotlight “definitely wasn’t an option,” she says. “I feel like I was kind of thrown into this world, whether I liked it or not; but I don’t take it for granted. What I’m most passionate about in my life now is fashion, so I have been put in the greatest position to execute that.”
In April of this year, Sofia Richie married music executive Elliot Grainge at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, on the French Riviera, in front of 180 guests. Celebrity nuptials are big business, but this one was different – mainly due to the excitement of the couple and the bride’s three exquisite bespoke gowns. Vogue covered not just the wedding, but also the final dress fittings; Google searches for ‘Chanel wedding dress’ rose 500% the day after the ceremony. The entire day was glorious; she and her father took seven and a half minutes to walk down the aisle (“We were giggling, crying, it was so surreal”) towards Elliot, who was waiting at the end: “We have this little look we give each other… [so] we just gave each other this smirk. We were like two giddy little kids following the rabbi, who was telling us what to do.”
Two days earlier, she had set up a TikTok account, with no real expectation of anything other than having fun (“Me doing my makeup; me putting on clothes; I didn't think anyone would care”), but those TikToks have now been viewed many millions of times, and her subsequent behind-the-scenes videos, posts and stories are catnip for her 3.4 million TikTok and 11 million Instagram followers. Little wonder, then, that in the seven months since her wedding, she has been tapped by luxury brands such as David Yurman, Prada and Chanel.
Her introduction to fashion came via her sister Nicole, 17 years older, who was the original reality-TV It-girl in the early 2000s, starring in The Simple Life alongside best friend Paris Hilton. “They were humongous,” Richie Grainge recalls. “And, as a kid, I had a general awareness of how obsessed people were with them.” She was 15 when Nicole was asked by a friend at Teen Vogue if Richie Grainge would be in a fashion shoot, and she remembers enjoying every minute of it. “I was a young kid, being able to play dress-up and take photos. It was so exciting, so fun.”
Campaigns for youth fashion brands followed and, for a while in her late teens, she became a fixture of the LA celebrity scene. “I was just growing up, being wild and – in my head – living my best life; trying to navigate, on my own, decisions that many teenagers would make. But then there was that layer that most teenagers do not have… which is, people are watching. When you’re young, you rebel, you don’t want opinions. I got to an age – I’m going to say around 20 years old – where I was like, ‘OK, this is a reputation I’m going to have [for a long time]. Let me go to my older sister, who’s gone down this road, and pick her brain for advice.’”
“When you put something on the INTERNET, you’re opening a door for opinion… and I love having an OPEN conversation. Then there are things that I don’t need anyone’s opinion on – if it feels special and SACRED to me, I won’t share”
The result was a conscious decision to reset and consider what was important to her: “There were steps that I felt I had to take… Let’s figure out your personal style so that when people think of you, there’s a clear vision of how you dress, how you feel, a vibe you give off. [Create] a business plan for myself, for my brand, so that any company I work with moving forward will be in alignment with me. And just putting myself in the right spaces, not being seen absolutely everywhere.”
The strategy and focus worked. But, at the heart of her popularity is a lively, open dialogue with her followers – all her posts finish with a directive to tell her what you think, which she is more than happy to engage with. “People have so many fun hacks that I had no idea about,” she says gleefully. Some work better than others – concealer as lipstick being one of the less successful experiments. “Being honest, it is something that I will never do again.”
She navigates social media with clear boundaries, thanks largely – again – to advice from her sister. “She’s such a veteran; she’s really gone through it all. She reminds me that ‘not everything needs to be shared; things can be private just for you’. My dad preaches that as well: just because you are in a public industry doesn’t mean your whole life needs to be public. When you put something on the internet, you’re opening a door for opinions. So when it comes to products I’m using, or I’m getting ready to go out, I love having an open conversation. Then there are things that I don’t need anyone’s opinion on – if it feels special and sacred to me, I won’t share.”
Richie Grainge, now 25, describes herself as a collaborator for the brands she works with, but she is planning something of her own in the imminent future. “My true focus is designing, and 2024 is the beginning of me really building onto that SRG brand.” She doesn’t want to give too much away ahead of the launch, but SRG will incorporate fashion, beauty and interiors – “Three things I’m super-passionate about; I haven’t really shown people my home, so I’m excited to open that door” – and an SRG product line, along with personal recommendations and community chat.
“If it has my NAME on it, then I want to be part of every single PROCESS. Color palettes, shoot, concepts – every DESIGN has to be run through me”
She is very much captain of her professional ship. “If it has my name on it, then I want to be part of every single process,” she says. “Color palettes, shoot, concepts – every design has to be run through me. Obviously, it’s important to have a team that you trust – my team understands that the vision starts in my brain, and then they can help me execute it. That is where they step in. My goal isn’t forever to be in the front, I would love to step back and really be the vision behind a brand.”
Away from work, Richie Grainge keeps life simple: cozy dinners with friends (“I have three or four girlfriends who are my ride-or-die; I speak to them every day”), watching Real Housewives (“Salt Lake City, Potomac, Beverly Hills. They make me laugh so hard”), and walking her two dogs with Elliot, the man she describes as “kind, respectful, smart, funny and handsome”. If their wedding is the stuff of social-media legend, the relationship preceding it is straight out of a cinematic rom-com: their fathers had worked together for years before they finally met through mutual friends (“My brother [Miles] vetted him immediately and said, ‘Yeah, he’s a great guy’”). They fell in love fast, although the proposal took a little longer than expected.
“We always had this flirtatious conversation: ‘You’re for sure my husband. You’re for sure my wife.’ And then, one day – I would say six months before he proposed – he’s like, ‘If I ever did propose, can you show me an inspiration picture of a ring?’ From that moment forward, every single day, I thought I was getting engaged. And he never brought it up again. It got to the point where I was like, ‘Is he just messing with me? This is mean.’”
In fact, Elliot was laying plans that included asking her dad for his blessing. “He’s so traditional, such a gentleman. He went over to my dad’s house for Sunday tea, and asked for my hand, which means the world to me; and I know it means the world to my dad.” It would have been perfect, if not for Richie Grainge herself. “I’m such a stalker that I was like: ‘Wait, where are you on a Sunday?’ My dad and Elliott had to come up with this whole game plan as to how to lie to me about Elliot’s whereabouts.”
Her combination of enviable style, personal candor and professional instinct drive Richie Grainge’s ever-increasing influence – and given how strongly her family life plays into her own, you have to wonder whether a reality TV show could form part of her future. She laughs out loud. “I have an understanding from just growing up in this industry that I need to be open to all things,” she says. “But certain things I’m closed off to, my own reality show being one.”
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