Sofia Richie Signals a Return to High Standards
By Patricia Patnode
Sofia Richie, the 24-year-old socialite and daughter of music celebrity Lionel Richie, recently married multi-millionaire English music producer Elliot Grainge, and fans are fawning over their breathtaking wedding and beautiful lifestyle.
From her years of living in the Hollywood hub, Richie had a lot of media baggage to overcome, not limited to her former relationship with Keeping Up with the Kardashians cast member Scott Disick. She made a traditional leap into high society off her family’s empire, crowning her one of the great “nepo babies” of our time. However, Richie has also created her own legacy as a supermodel and a bona fide influencer with a long list of fashion endorsements.
Now an ambassador for Chanel and Joe Malone London, Ritchie’s life is nothing short of fabulous. The public enthusiasm for her “old money” aesthetic indicates that young women desire stability and are growing to appreciate modest fashion.
Celebrities can be tools of driving cultural change by reflecting the interests of their audience and supplying them with new ideas. Although many young people lack disposable income, their cultural consumption and interests are closely watched in business. Throughout history, teenagers have led fashion rebellions, formed subcultures, and launched music moments.
Elvis Presley first achieved fame because of his popularity among young women. The same can be said for One Direction, Taylor Swift, The Beatles, and The Spice Girls. Famous English teen model Twiggy set the standard Mod style. Teen model Kate Moss embodied 1990s fashion. Grunge styles emerged from Seattle and Los Angeles out of street skateboarding, while the prep school style championed by Ralph Lauren drew inspiration from college students’ leisurewear.
It’s more complex than young people liking a song or a jean style and subsequently birthing a billion-dollar world tour or fashion movement, of course. However, the attention that Ritchie’s wedding, marriage and style content is garnering shows that young women aspire to be in healthy relationships and present themselves as polished and put together.
Most people were initially introduced to Richie through her friendship and subsequent fall-out with Kylie Jenner over a conflict of interest with Disick, who fathers three of Kourtney Kardashian’s children. When she dated Disick, who was in his 30s, Ritchie was 19. The odd dynamic provided many seasons of tension and entertainment on the Kardashians’ reality show.
Notably, none of the Kardashians attended Richie’s wedding. She was never heavily featured on the Kardashian show, but she and Disick were regularly photographed vacationing. An uncharitable way to describe her brand from 2016 through 2022 would be “the teenager who stole her best friend's brother-in-law, wore a lot of bikinis, and partied on boats.”
That’s unfair, though, since everyone makes mistakes at 19 and goes through turbulent romances. Not many of us have to deal with paparazzi documenting every yacht make-out session or frozen yogurt run with your boyfriend's children (who are closer in age to you than your boyfriend.)
Immediately following her wedding, Richie launched a TikTok account branded with her new last name to share the festivities. Some of her takeaways have been especially symbolic. For example, she has talked about the importance of practicing the same religion as your spouse and having a traditional wedding ceremony. Richie converted to Judaism for Grainge. After the wedding, she thanked a cantor at Los Angeles' Beverly Hills Temple of The Arts for helping her during her conversion process.
The massive interest in couples like the Grainges, as well as the Biebers, underscores the enduring appeal of a traditional marriage as an adventure of commitment and fun. To be sure, we’ve only seen the glamorous parts of the Grainge’s marriage. The ugly and challenging parts will likely never be publicized, but they are inevitable in even the strongest unions. It’s impossible to know the quality of someone's intimate life, and that is especially true for celebrities. We don’t really know anything about Richie or her marriage, but we do know that there are millions of hungry viewers wanting to emulate her lifestyle.
That lifestyle sells that marriage is good, exciting, and the end goal of a romantic relationship. A serious man, like Grainge, inspires maturity in a woman. A confident, devoted woman empowers a man to realize his full potential. After years of accepting low standards, many young people crave a high value life.
Patricia Patnode is a columnist at The Conservateur and a Junior Fellow at the Independent Women's Forum. She can be found on Twitter @IdealPatricia.
