I took my child out of school to go to Paris Fashion Week: King’s goddaughter India Hicks shares snaps of her daugher Domino, 17, with Heidi Klum as she says ‘learning doesn’t have to come from a textbook’
King Charles’s goddaughter, India Hicks, has revealed why she took her daughter out of school to attend Paris Fashion Week.
The 58-year-old, who is the daughter of Lady Pamela and David Hicks, took to her Substack account to write a piece about the trip.
According to India, taking her 17-year-old daughter Domino out of school for a day or two, ‘raised a few eyebrows – chiefly [her] own’.
However, she added, she felt that taking a trip can be educational, and, she noted, her daughter’s headmaster is ‘forever urging the importance of ‘real-world experience”.’
The entrepreneur and writer then jokingly wrote: ‘frankly, what could be more instructive and certainly amusing than witnessing a world in which grown adults panic over seating charts?’.
According to India, who is also a photographer, the excursion got off to a tricky start when ahead of their departure, they realised Domino’s passport was at school, leading to a 90-minute detour.
However, they made it to their Eurostar seats, with India remarking that ‘Paris, in all its absurd and exquisite glory, awaited’.
Describing her own relationship with fashion, India said it was ‘slightly ambivalent’, praising it for its ‘capacity to delight, provoke, and occasionally scandalise’.

India Hicks’ 17-year-old daughter Domino (pictured, left) is seen posing with Heidi Klum (pictured, right) during Paris Fashion Week
Less positive, however, she wrote, is ‘the self-importance that so often accompanies it’.
India said: ‘Fashion should be expressive, not oppressive. Yet it remains one of the most powerful industries on earth – an empire built on beauty, aspiration, and billions.
While at Paris Fashion Week, the mother-daughter duo attended Christian Louboutin’s show (which India described as a ‘delirious cocktail of sequins, theatre, and self-aware excess’).
The designer, who has known India since they were in their 20s, hosted what she described as a ‘spectacle’ – complete with a performance by the Sapeur-Pompier de Paris marching band, during which Christian joined in, playing the drum.
The ‘joyous’ event with its irreverent theatricality and ‘celebration of imagination’ reminded India why she had originally fallen in love with fashion, she wrote.
It was not the only outing they had in Paris: the following day, India and Domino attended a event hosted by the World Monuments Fund, ‘an organisation devoted to safeguarding endangered cultural heritage around the world,
The gala, marking the organisation’s 60th anniversary, was artistically directed by Zoë de Givenchy – a friend of India’s – and was ‘a monument to good taste’.
Returning to the topic of whether the trip was educational, India wrote that it ‘undeniably’ was.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER: The elegant duo also attended a gala – hosted by the World Monuments Fund – while in Paris
But, she concluded: ‘In a world increasingly run by algorithms, learning to navigate a Parisian seating chart might just be the ultimate survival skill – though I reminded Domino there’s a great deal more to life than who gets the front row.’
The trip comes several months after India, who was a bridesmaid at Charles and Diana’s wedding, recalled a ‘nerve-wracking’ encounter in her younger years.
Photographer India remembered the occasion that her ‘thoughtful’ godfather tasked her with taking the family Christmas card photo – despite being ‘young and inexperienced’ at the time.
The 57-year-old was invited by Charles to photograph himself alongside his former wife, Princess Diana, and their sons William and Harry. She revealed in an interview with Hello! magazine: ‘So, I went to Highgrove and photographed him and Diana and the boys, which was quite nerve-wracking.’
At the time, India had recently finished photography school and was ‘quite young and inexperienced’, but her ‘thoughtful’ godfather entrusted her with the job anyway.
She said that Charles had taken a big ‘risk’ when employing her as photographer since she ‘could have been a complete idiot with a camera’.
The fashion designer called the King ‘a very considerate godfather’, and spoke affectionately of his dutiful habit of always remembering to write Christmas and birthday cards.
She also praised the monarch’s vision for the future, as well as his long-standing commitment to combating climate change and backing for green energy. She said he was ‘ahead’ of the curve’ in his progressive beliefs.