Whilst Nicole Richie visited the UAE for the first time for appearances at the Dubai Shopping Festival, she spent a lot of time doing interviews, and Buro 24/7 got a chance to chat with her for 10 minutes. They also took some great photos of Nicole!

Here is a snippet of the interview:

Tell us how you got started in fashion design?

I was a figure skater growing up and my father’s costume designer – who made all of his tour costumes – was making my figure skating competition dresses. I was ten-years-old and she really encouraged me to come into her studio with her. I had all these ideas – and this was right around the time that Vera Wang designed Nancy Kerrigan’s Olympic dress – and I had a specific vision of the dress I wanted and she encouraged me to watch her work. This helped me to really understand what it takes to make things and it was something that I just really loved. From there I started creating things and I would just go to fabric stores and I started to make my own jewellery. I was making chokers at that time because it was the 90’s and there I was gluing charms onto velvet straps. Just the idea of being able to make something spoke to me and I realised that was my way of being creative and having fun and that was my first step into knowing what I wanted to do – and I just knew it was something I wanted to do.

Who is your style icon?

Well you know when I think of the words ‘style icon’ I think that is someone who played a huge influence in why I even love fashion, so that would be my mother. In the 80s she was a ‘woman about town’ – she was everywhere with my father and travelling with him, and I remember sitting in her bathroom sitting and in her dressing room and watching her get her hair and makeup done and she had all the vintage Chanel bags and these great Alaia pieces. I remember just looking at her and thinking: “She looks so beautiful and I can’t wait until I can dress up.” And you know we have very different styles – she is much more of a lady than I am – but she was like my first vision of this woman that was working with fashion and someone that I wanted to be like.

You can read the full interview by clicking here.

GALLERY LINKS:
Appearances » 2015 » January 29: At the Duabi Shopping Festival and Virgin Radio Dubai