Hilary Duff didn’t know quite what to expect when she dropped Luck… or Something, her first album in nearly a decade, earlier this year. While the 38-year-old never exactly stepped out of the spotlight, she’s spent the last few years focused on acting jobs and raising four kids with her husband, singer-songwriter-producer Matthew Koma. Having spent her teen years touring the world and dropping platinum albums before she could legally drink, Duff considered whether fans would follow her into this new musical chapter.
“I operate from a place of, ‘Do people still care about me? Does anybody even remember that I used to make music?!’” Duff tells Vogue. “That’s the barefoot Texas girl in me who still feels like I kinda have to fake it till I make it.”
Judging by the string of concert dates that Duff sold out this summer—including two nights headlining Madison Square Garden for the first time—it’s safe to say that she’s made it.
The Lucky Me Tour marks Duff’s first headlining tour in nearly two decades, and as such she wanted it to feel representative of where she is today. It would’ve been easy enough for her to trot out every night, sing through her catalogue of early aughts hits (of which there are plenty), and call it a day. But Duff wanted something more intentional. “I don’t think I would be able to perform the old songs if the new music wasn’t being celebrated by the fans the way it is,” she says.
People’s pasts are hard to get past—imagine if
“People’s pasts are hard to get past—imagine if everything you did in your high school or middle school years was archived online for everyone to look back on. But I can authentically go back and stand beside those moments of my life because I get to blend them with the very real realities of what I’ve been up to for the past few years.”
Duff is getting her hair and makeup touched up in her greenroom at the Garden.
In just a few hours, she’ll hit the stage in front of 20,000 screaming fans, and she’s starting to feel the butterflies in her stomach. Koma and their four kids have been on the road with Duff throughout the summer, and they tend to keep her too distracted to be nervous. “It’s been so fun, but also so hard,” she says. “I put in a full day of motherhood and then go play a show, but the second I step offstage, I’m right back in it.
They don’t care that I just played in front of all those people.”
Duff has gotten good at drawing boundaries and explaining to her kids that her job doesn’t look like every other mom’s: “I’ll step offstage and [my daughter] Banks will immediately start begging me for a cookie or something and I’ll be like, ‘Hey, babe, I love you so much but I need seven-and-a-half minutes to come back down to Earth because I’m on Mars right now.’”
She wanted her fans to feel like they were “inside of a shimmery bubble” each night of the tour.
Duff worked closely with her stylist Neelo Noory
Duff worked closely with her stylist Neelo Noory to pull looks that were comfortable but with a touch of pop star flair: a pair of boyfriend jeans with an extravagant feathered top, a 15-pound dress made out of glow-in-the-dark stars, a collection of vintage concert tees emblazoned with everyone from Jo Dee Messina to Good Charlotte. Duff originally told her team she didn’t want any heels on this tour, opting instead to wear sneakers and dance barefoot.
“At the very last minute I realized I have to get my shit together and just wear the damn heels,” she laughs. “I’ve gotta give the people what they want!”
Duff’s favorite part of touring again has been seeing fans dress up in some of her most memorable looks every night, along with some that she doesn’t even recognize. She loves seeing best friends dressed up in Lizzie and Isabella’s coordinated outfits from The Lizzie McGuire Movie, or any number of her looks from the “Wake Up” video.
When one person showed up to a meet-and-greet dressed up as a ghost with a cowboy hat, Duff burst out laughing upon realizing he was Casper from the 1998 TV movie Casper Meets Wendy, her first starring role. “Last night I was in my car heading out of the venue, and I heard a bunch of those pedicabs blasting my music with all these people dancing in the street in their outfits,” Duff says.
I don’t really know how to put words
“I don’t really know how to put words to it, but the way people have embraced me on this tour has felt very, very meaningful.”
Before Duff embarks on the international leg of The Lucky Me Tour—kicking off in Ireland this weekend—she shared some intimate snapshots from her summer on the road. A calm moment for glam before showtime in NorCal. Sound-checking on a hot afternoon at Red Rocks.
I will never forget my giant disco ball in that setting. Romancing what the backstage actually looks like here…
Getting hyped, pre-show…
Kinda chic to be a mom and a pop star… Sharing some of these moments with the kids has meant everything to me. Hard-working dream team! It’s the feeling… you’re one of my kind. Prepping for hometown love. Still not over you, Kia Forum!
Quick change is like an F1 pit stop… my starry armor and I are ready! Mae Mae and daddy side stage. Kisses from Phoenix! New York, do you really think I would come here and not have a couple surprises for you? How did we get here, was it luck… or something? Final touches on show glam…
A moment for the Kelsey Randall crystal dress…
The best post-show greeting
Source: www.vogue.com
