Cheshire Designer Paul Aaron Creates Custom Tour Dress for Hilary Duff

Cheshire knitwear designer Paul Aaron achieved a career milestone earlier this month when pop star Hilary Duff wore his custom statement dress during her tour stop at Madison Square Garden. The 31-year-old creator hand-crafts his intricate designs without machinery, adding to a Y2K-inspired pop wardrobe created alongside stylist Neelo Noory and designer Kelsey Randall.

For 31-year-old designer Paul Aaron, watching pop star Hilary Duff step onto the stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden in his custom knitwear felt entirely surreal. A long-time admirer of the performer since childhood—when he watched her star in the television series Lizzie McGuire—the designer had to pinch himself earlier this month when the glittering garment made its arena debut.

From Central Saint Martins Bin Bags to Arena Stages

Long before dressing global pop icons like Kylie Jenner, Shakira, and Zara Larsson, Aaron built the foundation of his craft as a student at Central Saint Martins in London. His unconventional entry into high-fashion knitwear began when a tutor noticed a student project where he created a dress by knitting bin bags together.

Working out of Cheshire without the aid of industrial machinery, Aaron constructs his elaborate garments entirely by hand—a painstaking process that can require weeks or months for a single piece.

The 500-Hour Masterpiece Behind The Lucky Me Tour

According to sources, Paul Aaron’s designs for Hilary Duff’s tour include intricate embellishments intended to create movement and sparkle, with elements engineered to catch light from multiple angles. These details align with the Y2K-era emphasis on maximalist, attention-grabbing aesthetics.

Reinventing Y2K Maximalism on the Road

Duff’s stage wardrobe extends far beyond a single statement piece, forming an entire aesthetic campaign celebrating early-2000s nostalgia. Supporting her album luck… or something, the artist’s concert run features tour style that is giving us Y2K flashbacks in the best way, according to fashion commentary tracking the tour’s sartorial choices.

Stylist Neelo Noory and custom designer Kelsey Randall collaborated closely to translate millennial adolescence into hyper-glamorous concert moments. Randall noted that the goal was to callback to Duff’s earlier career by reviving the bedazzled McBling aesthetic. The tour wardrobe mixes playful butterfly motifs that evoke vintage Versace chainmail with deconstructed dresses worn over loose boyfriend jeans, elevated bandeau tops, and feathered asymmetrical going-out shirts.