“As soon as I first put on my first Juicy tracksuit, I was obsessed,” says Paris Hilton of that fateful day back in the early 2000s when she received a package of velour two-pieces from her friend (and former Juicy Couture publicist) Lara Shriftman. Hilton was so enamored that she asked Shriftman for the entire collection, and not long afterwards, Hilton had acquired hundreds of tracksuits in every color-way possible. “I just fell in love with the brand and it basically became my uniform—I was not only wearing them to the airport, chilling at my house in them, but I was going out at night in them and I was rocking them with everything.” Hilton even started customizing them herself, gluing her own crystals onto them. Not long after, the rest of Hollywood took notice: celebrities like Madonna, Beyoncé, and Kim Kardashian, to name just a few, all stepped out in the iconic sets.
Once Hilton and Nicole Richie signed on for The Simple Life, the two ended up wearing Juicy Couture tracksuits just about every day while filming the show, as they were cute yet just practical enough for some light farm labor. Hilton’s fixation on the proto-athleisure brand hasn’t faded, though, and neither has its place in our recent cultural memory—in 2018, Juicy Couture put on its first runway show as part of New York Fashion Week, and Hilton still wears the brand more than anything else. There’s an entire closet in her house devoted solely to those velour and terry-cloth separates. Watch Hilton recollect her early relationship with the brand below—in a baby pink Juicy Couture tracksuit, naturally.
Directors: Max Bartick and Rom Bokobza
Producer: Rom Bokobza
DP: David Keninger
AC: Jordan Sakai
Gaffer: Josh Anderson
Audio: Kara Johnson
Associate Producer: Jamie Thomas
Set Decorator: Natalie Falt
Editor: Jeff Bernier