Chiara Ferragni: ‘A woman can do anything she wants’
Instagram sensation Chiara Ferragni is used to living life in the spotlight. But as her new tell-all documentary premieres at the Venice Film Festival, she admits she’s nervous about opening up…
if you’re not following Chiara Ferragni on Instagram, then you’re missing out on witnessing a life seemingly tailor-made for the social media platform. Beach selfies posted from sun-kissed shores. A wardrobe of couture paraded through New York, Milan and Tokyo. Adorable candids from her cherubic son, Leone. At first glance, it seems like the grid of your average influencer, albeit with an enviable follower count of 17.2 million. But a closer look unveils a savvy businesswoman who has turned her success in the digital landscape into a lucrative global empire.
In 2009, she set up blog The Blonde Salad, pressing pause on her studies in law when she sensed its potential, despite puzzled reactions from friends and family. Her instincts proved correct. Blog posts and photos led to invitations to fashion shows, then requests for interviews, then design collaborations. Today, she’s considered one of the pioneers of digital entrepreneurship. And yet… ‘I love what I’m doing but I never think I’m the most successful,’ she says. ‘I’m so grateful for what I have now, but you always aim to do better.’ Her ambition has served her well. She featured as one of Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30, and is now CEO of her own self-titled fashion brand.
Despite exuding confidence that screams ‘I know what I’m doing’, Chiara has been dogged by detractors, who have long assumed that her strings were being pulled by more powerful men, like a former partner who encouraged her in the early days. ‘At the time, I was working with my ex-boyfriend, who was my business partner. So many people thought he was the mind behind it, which was crazy. There was this idea that a woman cannot be creative and a businesswoman. So many people in society still speak like that. That’s what I’m trying to prove: a woman can do anything she wants.’
Like all women with a public profile online, Chiara has had her fair share of trolling and criticism, but she is resolute. ‘If I believed all the people that were saying shit behind my back…’ she pauses. ‘Or not even behind my back – in front of my face – I would have never even done a year of blogging. But I was so sure about what
I was doing. The ups and downs happen to everybody, so you have to follow your instincts and focus on your goals.’
Despite her battle cry, she knows that even the strongest CEOS need formidable teams, and Chiara is involved in every hire. ‘In a colleague, I like hard workers who know what they want, and are very creative as well. Even if you work on the talent side of my team or the brand side, you need to be creative and open-minded.’ Her work ethic seems to come from her mother. ‘She’s my biggest fan. She made me believe that I could do anything I wanted in the world. I have two sisters and she made all three of us feel special. None of us are competitive: we’re supportive of each other.’ Indeed, Chiara’s youngest sister, Valentina, has now followed in her social media footsteps.
In 2017, Chiara was approached about making a Kardashian-style documentary series about her personal life. It was a flat no. ‘We were not interested,’ she says. ‘I wanted to tell my story from my business point of view, for my generation and the younger generation, to tell them how I reached my success. The ups and downs.’ But she changed her mind about opening up her personal life when introduced to Elisa Amoruso, a director who has created Chiara Ferragni: Unposted, a film that presents Chiara’s private and professional personas. ‘It was like going to therapy,’ Chiara explains. ‘It’s split between my business life and my personal life. For the first time, somebody else is telling my story.’ Diane von Furstenberg and Donatella Versace feature, and the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week. For someone who has always had control over how they are portrayed, allowing a director to shape the narrative was daunting. ‘When you tell your story yourself, you can be sure about what people perceive, because it’s giving them your side of the story,’ she explains. ‘It was scary at the beginning.’
Perhaps, to an extent, all of those who have made names for themselves by sharing their intimate thoughts and images seek something very simple: validation. Chiara at least suggests that to be the case. ‘I just hope they think I’m a good person,’ she answers when I ask what she hopes people will take away from the documentary. ‘A good-hearted person. And no matter if they know me or they don’t know me, even if they’ve never heard my name before, maybe they’ll think, “I can do something more with my life as well.”’
‘Chiara Ferragni: Unposted’ will be released on Amazon Prime Video this autumn