“I’m telling my kids this is the royal wedding.” — TikTok user89984382348
Sofia Richie Grainge is the web’s new princess. The 24-year-old has been within the public eye since she was an adolescent, however this previous April, she hit an inflection level when she received married on the iconic Lodge du Cap-Eden-Roc within the South of France and took the entire web along with her. The consequence was a newly topped It lady. Group chats lit up. “This is my Super Bowl.” “Wedding of the century.” Over 400 million TikTok views later, the Sofia Grainge impact is in full swing. Girls overhauled their closets in favor of Grainge–impressed sophistication, stylish kinds had been out of the blue rendered distasteful, and influencer-marketing corporations began providing branding classes primarily based on the marriage. At a second in time when catchphrases like “quiet luxury” and “stealth wealth” have burrowed into our collective cultural consciousness, Grainge checks the containers. In an AI-obsessed period, individuals have by no means been extra conscious of authenticity vs. artifice (increase your hand when you obtain the BeReal app), however the lavish marriage ceremony studded with celebrities in some way resonated as relatable and actual. She discovered her second, and he or she is the second. And as I discovered in our hour-long dialog, she has massive fashion-industry plans for her subsequent second.
First, let’s return to the place all of it started: falling in love along with her now husband, Elliot Grainge. “We started off just as friends. I would always tell him, ‘Whoever you end up with is the luckiest girl.’ I thought that person is going to be really loved, appreciated, and worshipped. And then I realized one day… Why can’t that lucky girl be me?” Grainge tells me over the telephone. Her previous relationships had been closely documented within the superstar information world, but her partnership with Grainge flew comparatively below the paparazzi radar—maybe a touch of the quiet luxurious of all of it to return. Put up-wedding, the couple got here to represent the #relationshipgoals many hope to manifest in their very own lives. It wasn’t only a fairly, Vogue-approved marriage ceremony. It was proof to all of the web girlies to by no means settle and maintain out for the connection you deserve. To listen to Grainge speak about their love, it’s simple to turn into enamored with the fairytale of all of it. “When we started being romantic, he just gave me a different feeling,” Grainge shares. “It was a feeling of safety. It was the feeling of really being appreciated. I knew when we started dating that he was my husband. It wasn’t a ‘Do you think one day he’ll propose?’ It was like, ‘This is my husband—100%.’ I felt this love for him that I never felt ever in my life.” Royal-wedding materials certainly.
With a leveled-up romantic life, the web likes to level out that Grainge additionally upgraded her type. Grainge cites Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as her final type muse, and after a marriage weekend replete with Chanel, cream linen, and glossy buns, she cemented her standing because the poster lady for the quiet-luxury pattern. But it surely seems she doesn’t utterly establish with the buzzword of 2023. “Quiet luxury, the term, it sounds really nice, so I’m not knocking it,” she says. “But [my stylist] Liat Baruch and I started working together properly about three and a half years ago, and when we met, our word was ‘timeless.’” For Grainge and Baruch, it isn’t about chasing a pattern or aligning with the zeitgeist of a second. Relatively, they’re tapping into clothes as a supply of power and confidence. “I feel powerful in what I wear. I really tuned into myself and asked, What am I wearing when I feel my most powerful self? And that was in more sophisticated, timeless attire,” she provides.
It seems there’s immense energy in what Sofia Grainge chooses to put on. Google searches for “Chanel wedding dress” noticed a 500% enhance the day after the L.A. native received married in three customized Chanel appears to be like. So how did the wedding-weekend outfits seen around the world come collectively? Grainge selected to work with Baruch, an in depth household buddy and stylist, to dream up her library of French Riviera appears to be like. “Liat is a genius at what she does,” Grainge tells me. As soon as they received the work, the curation course of got here naturally: “It was like two friends sitting on a couch. It was so easy and laid-back, and we just started making mood boards together,” she explains.
Grainge says Chanel has been her favourite designer her total life, so naturally, the home was her first option to design her marriage ceremony gown. “When I heard that they were open to working with me for the wedding, I immediately hopped on a plane and met with their head of couture in New York City,” she says. Grainge admits to being a bit intimidated in the beginning. Chanel is, properly, Chanel, and he or she didn’t wish to step on the toes of people that clearly know what they’re doing. Regardless of preliminary nerves, “they really made me feel comfortable to have an opinion and put in my two cents. They were so hands-on, lovely, and attentive,” she recalls. The couture-level attention to detail stood out to Grainge. “They would say, ‘The buttons are a little bit too white. We’d love to dye them to make them a bit more cream,’ and I’d fly to Paris to make sure the hem was hitting just right,” she provides. “It was honestly one of the most amazing, fascinating experiences of my entire life.”
Initially, the plan was only for the ceremony robe, however after months of attempting to determine the rehearsal-dinner and after-party appears to be like, she realized nothing goes with Chanel however… extra Chanel. “That’s when I went back, and I asked, ‘Would you guys be open to doing two more dresses for me?’ And they were so kind to take it on,” Grainge shares. 9 months and 7 flights to Paris later, the clothes had been lastly prepared: a beaded rehearsal-dinner outfit impressed by a glance from Chanel’s F/W ’97 couture assortment worn by Stella Tennant, a lace marriage ceremony robe with a halter neckline and a resin water droplet–adorned veil, and a double-layer minidress with a signature 3D camellia flower impressed by an F/W ’93 look worn by Claudia Schiffer for the after-party.
The appears to be like had been so beautiful, in truth, that Anna Wintour herself determined to upend Vogue’s content material plans for the marriage. Grainge recounted the expertise of being along with her sister Nicole Richie in Paris on the Chanel atelier for a becoming when the home’s artistic director, Virginie Viard, informed them, “We just had a wild experience. Anna Wintour was just here, and we gave her a quick preview of your dresses. She would really love if her team could cover your final fitting.” Naturally, the sisters had been on board: “Nicole and I gave each other a sister look like we’re freaking out.” Wintour and the Vogue crew materialized in Paris 4 days earlier than the marriage to seize the ultimate becoming, a second Grainge describes as “surreal.” The unique association was to do the usual after-the-fact marriage ceremony characteristic, however now, the Vogue staff would edit the becoming footage in only a few days and make a splash by dropping all of the behind-the-scenes gown particulars because the bride walked down the aisle. The anecdote highlights Wintour’s foresight. She is aware of a “new royal wedding” when she sees one.
Whereas Vogue’s content material plans had been extremely orchestrated, Grainge’s had been the precise reverse. The launch of her TikTok took place extra organically that weekend. “My friends were like, ‘How cool would it be if you started a TikTok and showed people in real time what was happening?’ I thought, ‘You know what? That’s so refreshing, and that’s a great idea.’” Grainge posted her first-ever TikTok from France two days earlier than her marriage ceremony, a GRWM (that’s “get ready with me” in web converse) for a prerehearsal dinner. Maybe being a newcomer to the house had its personal appeal. “I actually feel like a grandma on TikTok. Fun fact: I don’t even know how to edit a video,” she admits. Nonetheless, that doesn’t imply there wasn’t intention behind her movies. “I feel like a lot of content around large events is so planned, and they’re so calculated. The content that I created around my wedding was organic, and I wasn’t pushing anything or hiding anything waiting for a magazine to publish. I was just being myself and letting people live through it with me in real time,” she says. As for why she felt the necessity to share, Grainge appears as geeked out on the fantasy facet of an A-list French Riviera marriage ceremony as the remainder of us: “I really wanted to take people along with me because I felt like holy crap—this is a fairy-tale moment. I need to share this with people.”
And a fairy story it was. A buyout of an iconic lodge that’s hosted everybody from Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso to Jane Birkin and Jackie O. A visitor record dotted with notable names like Cameron Diaz and Paris Hilton. A mountain of white and cream roses. These Chanel clothes. Musical performances by Lionel Richie, Stephen Sanchez, and Good Charlotte. Fireworks over the Mediterranean Sea.
This occasion was the beautiful results of a 12 months’s value of planning, and Grainge had a hand in every part. “There was not one thing with my party planner that I didn’t want to be involved in. I wanted to pick the flowers. I wanted to pick the color of the linen. Every single thing about my wedding had Virgo written all over it,” she jokes. As for the second she’ll inform her kids about? “Standing under the chuppah, we would squeeze each other’s hands and look out into the crowd and take in the faces that traveled to be with us, our families and our close friends. When are we ever going to have every single person we love the most together? It was magic,” she says.
It wasn’t till a number of days into their honeymoon when Grainge realized the remainder of the world felt the magic too. “My husband looks at me, and he says, ‘I think people are freaking out over this,’ and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” The newlyweds had been on a abandoned island in the course of the Maldives with no service, and after they lastly received house, that’s when she felt it. “I left my house, and tons of people were coming up to me. I was being stopped right, left, and center,” she says. “It was so sweet, but it was also like, ‘Oh my god, I forgot that people tuned in and loved and saw my wedding. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, you did?’ It was a very surreal and kind of a wow moment for me, and I was really flattered. The amount of love I felt also from people on the internet filled my heart and made me really happy.”
Though Grainge might have been the final to know, it’s clear she has captured the world’s consideration. Her fortuitous marriage ceremony of the century and unassuming social technique have made her basically synonymous with good style and elevated type. As for what’s subsequent, like every Virgo value her planner, she is a number of steps forward and is deep into getting ready for an thrilling launch: her personal clothes line—not a collaboration or a capsule however a full-fledged model helmed by Richie Grainge.
“The aesthetic is very my vibe,” she tells me of the road. “I made sure, trying on every single sample, that it embodies the aesthetic that I’ve been wearing. It’s 100% me.” Though the model will encapsulate Grainge’s type, she doesn’t have plans to be the face of the road, taking a web page from her sister’s playbook: “I’ve watched Nicole design for years with House of Harlow, and it has definitely been inspiring for me. I’ve taken notes, and I’ve learned a lot. We don’t need to be people that just throw our names on things. We can be passionate and be involved.” Her goal is to focus extra on the design, and he or she’s taking her time to verify it comes out precisely how she envisions.
“I’m co-designing with our designer named Cass. She’s brilliant, and it was kind of the same vibe as when I started putting together wedding looks with Liat,” she says. “I had Cass come to my house, and we sat in my backyard in sweatpants. We started with things in life that inspire us. For me, it was art and music. We built this whole story based on things that inspire us.” When pressed to share her desires for the road, Grainge hesitates. I recommend milestones like exhibiting at New York Trend Week or a dream superstar carrying the road, and in true Grainge vogue, she stays humble. “I want whoever buys it to feel good in it. I hope that people connect with it. I hope people love it,” she says. If it’s something like her marriage ceremony, it’s positive to have a extra vital influence than anybody might have anticipated.
Photographer: Jonny Marlow
Stylist: Lauren Eggertsen
Hairstylist: Jenny Cho
Make-up Artist: Kara Yoshimoto Bua
Manicurist: Thuy Nguyen
Video Director: Stephanie Romero
Cinematographer: Amusement Productions
Video Editor: Collin Hughart
Sound Mixer: Jason Flaster
Inventive Director: Alexa Wiley
Leisure Director: Jessica Baker
