Meet the Cheeky Artist Offering You a Shortcut to Red Carpet Style!
Angelica Hicks is a talented artist with a passion for fashion and pop culture who knows that style can come cheap! She’s a millennial illustrator proving this in her hit social media videos showing her recreating high fashion red carpet looks from trash, for a fraction of the price. She also doesn’t take fashion or herself too seriously, and everyone’s in on the joke through her social media updates featuring herself or her Barbie doll.
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Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
Taking 19th century commentator Oscar Wilde’s well-worn saying to heart, Hicks finds the outfits of numerous A-listers game for her unique interpretations on TikTok and Instagram. These include celebrity icons such as the Kardashians, J.Lo, Joan Collins, Emily Ratajkowski, and Anna Wintour. However, her work is fuelled by admiration, and she is not mocking the outfits she recreates, she insists to Insider: They’re “definitely testaments to the original creations, just kind of on a budget.”
And her influencer status is growing on people. As the New York Post declared: “Angelica Hicks, 29, has captured the interest of thousands of fashionable eyes around the world by creating budget versions of high fashion outfits.”
Hick’s silver tinsel interpretation of Taylor Swift’s sparkling Oscar de la Renta mini dress at the MTA Music Video Awards in 2022, made from strands of silver crystals, and topped off by Swift’s signature red lipstick, saw Hick’s followers post adoring comments declaring her even better than the original!
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In March 2022, Hick’s TikTok video in which she recreated a Schiaparelli dress worn by Maggie Gyllenhaal at the Oscars, was reposted by the actress and went viral, notching up millions of views. Hicks insouciantly used Ferrero Rocher chocolate wrappers in place of the gold flowers on the original gown.
From London to Brooklyn
Hicks grew up in an artistic household that nurtured creativity: “My sister and I were always encouraged to draw as our parents didn’t want us to buy them presents” they could just buy themselves, she shares with This Generation. She credits her parents for helping her hone her aesthetic instinct. She later drew to help get through the demands of college, and things took off from there.
Hicks also tells This Generation that moving stateside has been pivotal in launching her career: “Definitely moving to New York allowed me to be self-sufficient. It was like a fresh start. New experiences, new city, new things.” A social media enthusiast, she admires how everyone can use it to showcase their work and make it accessible to everyone. This is how supermodels Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid ended up regramming her illustration of them just because she tagged them.
Today, Hick’s clients and partners include big names in art and fashion. As her website reveals, these include Gucci, British Vogue, Glamour, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Harper’s Bazaar Italy.
She’s a published author too. Her first book, Tongue In Chic, The Fabulous Fashion World of Angelica Hicks reimagined fashion icons, celebrating them through her witty visual puns.
Repurposing at its best
Style, Hicks believes, can be achieved on any budget. As her TikTok bio reads, she’s “serving looks for less.”
She will use anything she finds lying around. Her take on the blush pink Louis Vuitton plunging dress worn by Blonde actress, Ana de Armes, to wow the Venice Film Festival crowds, was made from altogether different elements.
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In Hick’s “copycat” interpretation, shiny pink trash liners imitated the original fabric. She recreated the chunky choker and bracelet jewelry using mesh sleeves from a pear, and a garlic clove as the hanging bauble.
“Just sometimes I see an outfit and I think…I can make an affordable version, and that process is funny,” Hicks posts. All her videos end with Hicks facing the camera and raising her eyebrows as if to say “not a bad rip off, right!” Or as she explains to Insider speaking about her viral videos: “It’s like playing dress-up for a grown-up.”
The green credentials of this endevor are standout too, of course! “I really try to not buy stuff because that’s part of the comedy for me,” she said of her materials. She tells Insider that she didn’t want to incur “waste on a grand level” and will only purchase small items such as mounting tape and leave the rest to creativity.”
The future looks good!
While dabbling in fashion, maintaining her passion for things handmade, and more recently for video, Hicks respects the ability of people in the limelight to use their position or influence for good. She tells This Generation of her admiration for model Adwoa Aboah for starting Gurls Talk, a small community offering young women a safe space to discuss self care, social justice, anxiety, loneliness, sexuality and other pressing issues. This is something that Hicks would like to do one day.
