Hilary Duff leaned all the way into Y2K for a dreamy new Paper magazine cover shoot — bedazzled brows, beaded bracelets and zero pressure included.
Some throwbacks chase the star. Hilary Duff is styling hers herself. The 39-year-old former Disney Channel star leaned into the nostalgic era that made her famous for a new photo shoot with Paper magazine published Monday, rocking bold, bedazzled eyebrows across a run of playful looks, per Page Six.
Start with the brows, because Duff clearly did. In one joyful shot, she laughs with colorful jewels across her eyebrows, arms thrown wide in a strapless black minidress, per Page Six. In another, the jewels turn pink — rhinestones on her brows with matching crystals worked into her hair. For the cover itself, the “So Yesterday” singer wore a purple lacy minidress, chunky black sky-high platform heels and a pile of beaded bracelets, per Page Six.
None of this is an accident, and Duff knows exactly which audience is watching. She remains an icon of the late ’90s and early 2000s, thanks in large part to “Lizzie McGuire,” which aired on Disney Channel from 2001 to 2004, before a run of hit movies and a successful singing career followed, per Page Six. In a Q&A with the magazine, the mother of four talked about her millennial fans bringing Y2K style back for her concerts, partly as a nod to her 2003 album, “Metamorphosis,” per Page Six.
Here is the part that makes the shoot more than a costume party: Duff is happy to visit that era, but she is not trying to move back in. She told the magazine she is glad to see some of the fashion return, specifically low-rise jeans. “I don’t think I could wear skin-tight low-rise jeans like I used to, but a baggy low-rise jean, I’m super into,” she said, per Page Six, adding that she likes that the fashion choices do not always make sense and carry an air of not caring.
She was just as clear about what she has left behind. “But the pressure is gone, which is nice,” she explained, per Page Six. “Seeing kids dressed like that makes me so happy, because it takes me back, but I don’t actually want to be 17. I don’t even want to be 25.” Even the nostalgia has limits — she joked that she has PTSD from how many shawls she wore back in the day, quipping, “I’m gonna have to find a shawl that doesn’t remind me of the ones I wore,” per Page Six.
The timing is no coincidence. Duff has been making waves on her “The Lucky Me” World Tour by bringing back pieces of her past on her own terms, per Page Six. In August, she reunited with ex Joel Madden to sing a duet onstage at her New York City show, 20 years after their split, and later that month she paid tribute to another ex, the late Aaron Carter, at her Philadelphia concert, wearing a vintage T-shirt featuring Carter, whom she dated in 2000 when both were just 13, per Page Six.
Put the shoot and the tour together and a pattern emerges — one the original coverage lays out in pieces without quite naming. Duff is not selling a comeback to who she was. She is curating the archive: the brows, the bracelets and the old songs come out when she chooses, and the pressure that used to come with them stays in the past.
The 247 Take — Hilary Duff in bedazzled brows is not a Y2K reboot, it is a victory lap: the era looks best on the woman who no longer has to prove she belongs in it.
Sources: Page Six
