FASHION VICTIM
Now a leader of style, Richie once loved the ‘Punky Brewster’ look
Even a major fashionista has her off decade. Ask Nicole Richie about her biggest fashion faux pas and she giggles. “Well, I was a huge ‘Punky Brewster’ fan in the day, and I used to wear a green sock and a red sock with a white shoe and a black shoe because I wanted to be just like Punky.”
“My mom wouldn’t take me anywhere!” Richie says. “She was mortified and I didn’t understand at all. Mom also told me not to take pictures in that outfit because ‘you’re going to look back and you’re going to look nuts.’
“I never want to give my mom too much credit about being right, but she was right in this particular situation.”
These days, the designer and a mentor on NBC’S “Fashion Star” (9 p.m. Tuesdays, Wmaq-channel 5) is a style trendsetter.
“I don’t buy something because it looks good on a hanger and has a $50,000 hangtag on it,” Richie says, adding, “I shop in thrift stores all the time.”
Her pop, Lionel Richie, just put out an album of country duets and gets honored in a tribute special Friday on CBS. Then, like his daughter, he takes on reality TV, joining Kelly Clarkson and Robin Thicke on the ABC summer show “Duets.”
Any advice? “My dad is the ultimate entertainer,” she says. “He is entertaining on a Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. That’s just who he is. If anything, I need his help. He really doesn’t need mine.”
Cindy Pearlman, Big Picture News Inc.