How I buy: Haylie Duff

We all shop for clothes, but no two people shop the same. It can be a social and deeply personal experience; sometimes it can be impulsive and entertaining, at others, goal-oriented, a chore. Where do you buy When are you shopping? How do you decide what you need, how much to spend and what is “you”? These are some of the questions we ask prominent people in our “How I Shop” column.

If you’ve been through it and can’t remember the infamous fashion trends – the super baby t-shirts and low-rise jeans we’ve been shuddering about until recently – there’s a good chance the evidence Photographs have long been stored securely, in physical photo albums or on memory cards in a drawer somewhere at your parents’ house. But if you’re Haylie Duff, you might stumble upon photos of your Y2K wardrobe during a random scroll on Instagram, when a tag on an image from, say, the 2002 Teen Choice Awards may appear. .

“Isn’t it crazy that we look at this as an era? We’re so far back it’s a step back,” she told me. “Oh my God, we’re so old. I’m so old.”

Duff is ready to discuss those red carpet moments from the early 2000s, which left a mark on many impressionable teens and tweens, and are now reintroduced into our sartorial lexicon. All that amuses him. “I look at these young girls wearing pretty much whatever we wore in the early ’90s – when I was a kid my mom would always say,’ You think you made that up, but we’ve been doing it since the ” 70s. ‘ Now I’m old enough to be like, ‘Oh my God, I did that when I was a kid,’ “she says. “Funny how it goes.”

Her styling these days is a lot less heavy on low waists and oversized waistbands, and a lot more on ease, versatility, and longevity. Duff is now a mom of two and actor (“Blending Christmas”, her new Lifetime holiday flick, releases December 12), influencer (you can follow her at @haylieduff) and entrepreneur (she co-founded the brand of children’s clothing made in LA Little Moon Society) – she thinks about fashion based on how it best suits her lifestyle. Before, she breaks down her modern uniform, shares some of her favorite recent purchases, and talks about the 2000s pieces she kept to pass on to her children. Read on.

“I was in fact [just] shopping online because I have stuff coming up. It depends on the event – [for holiday parties] I normally like pants. I like good pants, or even just good jeans with a glittery top. It’s one thing that’s pretty consistent with me: I’m very laid back. I tend to lean more on a good pair of shoes, good jeans and a sparkly top for the holidays than dresses. Or a good jacket – I always like a good jacket. I like Jenni Kayne’s cocoon sweater. I live there. I have it in all colors. I can put it on a dress or a T-shirt and jeans; I can just wear it with so many things.

“I have an upcoming charity event that I need an evening dress for. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, something formal? I feel like it’s been forever since I last. ‘haven’t been to anything formal.’ You know who I always love for dresses that are more formal but not super chic? Black halo – for a good, simple black dress that you can wear that people won’t notice if you’ve worn it twice.

“My pretty much everyday uniform is a pair of skinny jeans, Isabel Marant sneakers and one Les Tien sweater, or a good white T-shirt with my Jenni Kayne sweater. I like blouses from Ulla Johnson; whenever I go somewhere and need to get something ready quickly, I can always put on one of her shirts and people always tell me, “I like your top. She has great fabrics and prints.

“I actually bought a Good American jacket – this was my first time buying stuff from there – and I love it. It is this super thick military jacket, but it is cotton and has a good feeling to the touch. I will be living there this winter. I also bought a brocade jacket at Strong Strong. I have nothing to wear it, but I’m excited for the day I can wear it. It’s hanging there like, ‘Someday.’

“I have a vintage pair of Levis that I live in, and it’s something that I feel like I’m going to have them forever. If someone takes them off me, I’ll be so sad. I have a military jacket that I have. i bought it about a year ago which i love – it’s so broken and soft, and i can wear it with literally anything. then i have a Chanel shoulder bag … it can be your special bag that you use for everything. My mom gave me a Louis Vuitton that she bought in the 70s when I was probably 15, and it looked like she had just bought it. Sometimes you can make a bigger purchase like this, knowing that it will last you forever if you are careful of this one, rather than having 20 other handbags that you change all the time.

“I did damage on Black Friday. I did damage to Jenni Kayne. I did damage to Freda Salvador. I was really kicked furniture more than recently, but I ‘ve definitely participated in some Black Friday sales.

“If you look at pictures from the early 2000s, you know that ‘simple’ was not in my vocabulary at the time. As I got older, and especially when I had kids, my time to devote to myself each day – how much time I take to prepare and things like that – got smaller, so I tend to look for more. very good bases that I know [make me] look pretty cohesive and like i put a little effort into it, but it didn’t take that much. Stuff where I feel like I can go on school trips, but then I could also go to a meeting if I needed to. I also think that as I get older I care a bit more about quality than quantity. It was a big part of my children’s clothing line, Little Moon Society, which grew out of my awareness of what the fashion industry meant for the environment. I started to think to myself, ‘Oh, I think maybe I’m not going to buy that many things, but I’m going to buy better things.’

“There are outfits that come to mind [from the 2000s] that I’m like “I can’t believe I’ve worn this” – these come to mind a little more often than the good ones. I went through a phase where I wore a lot of vintage. There is a vintage dress that comes to mind that was a black dress and one shoulder. Looking back, the choices I made that were simpler have stood the test of time much longer than some of the craziest outfits I wore.

“One of the things I wore a lot were chunky bangles, and a lot of the ones I had I bought in vintage stores. It’s a look that still works in a way – a great piece of jewelry doesn’t. never really gets old I could wear a few today and people say “cute” to me.

“We could probably ditch the super, super low jeans. I also remember really big belts back then. Someone recently tagged me on Instagram for a giant belt. The jeans under the dresses were really funny too. It was the jam … Like, “the dress would have been nice on its own, Haylie. What were you doing ?”

“I have boxes and boxes of my old special things – my old designer heels or my special designer dresses that I loved – away from my daughters. My husband always says to me, “Do we need to keep five boxes of shoes? “I’m always like, ‘When they’re 20 they’re going to think this stuff is amazing.’ Hope we are the same size because they have some real gems ahead for them.

“When I was doing ‘Hairspray’ on Broadway, it was a big change in my life back then. I was in my twenties. I moved to New York on my own for the first time. C is so important to do that. I bought a Missoni draped neck mini dress. I wore it to something – I don’t remember what it was, but I remember that purchase and I said to myself: “This is the most beautiful dress. Oh my God. “I wore them with these purple glitter Gucci pumps. I thought these shoes were the best thing that ever happened to me. They are definitely stowed away in my boxes for my daughters one day. Amazing, or they go. say, “Mom, this is not cool. I can’t believe you’re wearing them. “

“I see stuff that I love scrolling through on Instagram. I love the Popular page – I’m going to spend so much time looking at the more random posts from Reels. I think I probably see it more than anything. any new shopping on Instagram is a real problem for me. They say to me, “Oh, you like that? Well, here are 20 other things that are a little bit similar. “And I’m like, ‘Oh no.’

“One of the cool things about this business in general is that when you’re on set you work with really talented people who know how to put things together and how to make really great outfits look effortless, that which I think is the best kind of fashion. I hate it when someone follows all the trends. I gravitate more to people who have found something that suits them and then I keep reinventing it. inspired by wardrobes and the people in the costume department on movies and how they put things together. But I also feel really lucky that a lot of my job and what people look for in me is me at home. I cook so much, I make a lot of recipes for different brands – it’s really is more of me in my home environment, and it really matches who I turned into fashion, what i is a little more discreet.

“I love shopping online at specific stores. I need returns to be really easy – that’s what will put me off shopping somewhere. But as we started knocking on wood, hopefully. get it out of the pandemic a bit, move to texas things have been a lot more open up here. i’ve actually been shopping in real stores a bit more than before which i have to tell you i love really. I forgot how much I liked it. My kids are both in school now, and some days I will be alone for a day of shopping. I put on my headphones, I listening to an audiobook and I turn on a Nordstrom. better than this moment. ‘”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.Please Note: Occasionally we use affiliate links on our site. It does not affect our editorial decision making.

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