the Influencer effect
Brands fly them around the world, they charge thousands for a single Instagram post—and now their collections sell out in a matter of days. looks into the bloggers who are transforming the fashion industry
From the front row of shows to debuting their own collections, bloggers are transforming the fashion industry
All summer long, I was itching to get my feet into a pair of kittenheel raffia pumps embroidered with bananas, cherries, kiwis and carrots— the footwear equivalent of Carmen Miranda. They looked bonkers, but in a good way: fun, whimsical, and delightfully eccentric.
But they weren’t by Gucci or Prada and I hadn’t spotted them at Paris Fashion Week or in an expensive department store. They were MR by Man Repeller, the footwear line by blogger-turned-media-mogul Leandra Medine. Launched last October exclusively on Net-a-porter, in just two collections the brand has become a coveted name for shoe-lovers in fashion’s edgier circles. And it has also bestowed on Medine the highest of fashion statuses: digital influencer-slashcredible designer. In today’s industry, it’s the new jackpot.
Once seen as a temporary fad and the preserve of the enthusiastic amateur, blogging has blossomed into one of fashion’s most lucrative sectors, with the upper echelon of these influencers raking in millions of dollars a year. And the best bloggers are now fashion celebrities—equal to top editors in terms of clout, but also acting as brand ambassadors, street-style gurus and lifestyle muses.
The rise of social media has been integral to blogging. Medine, who counts 500,000 followers on her personal Instagram account and 1.8 million on Man Repeller, is now more powerful on social media than many established fashion brands. It has also made the term ‘blogger’ an outmoded one: many of the influencers we follow today don’t actually have blogs or, if they do, they’re only supplementary platforms to Instagram, which has become a portal for their own fashion adventures—and their own fashion lines.
“It makes perfect sense,” says Agnès Rocamora, a reader in social and cultural studies at The London College of Fashion. “Fashion influencers have multi-hyphenate personalities. ‘Marketer’ is one of them. They understand and have access to the fashion industry in truly new ways. The progression from representing someone else’s label to launching their own products is only natural.”
Medine has chosen footwear. But there is a range of influencer-designed products on offer: bikinis, dresses, accessories, handbags, and even phone and travel cases. These are being created by everyone from Los Angelesnative Rumi Neely of Fashion Toast, to Italians Chiara Ferragni of The Blonde Salad, and Giorgia Tordini and Gilda Ambrosio of Attico.