If you're like me when you open Instagram you see a constant feed of stories, posts, reels, and more from your favorite influencers. It can seem like influencers have just taken off over the past few years with the rise of social media. Influencers are not a new concept for the fashion industry though.
The fashion industry has seen their own influencers dating back to the creation of some of the biggest luxury brands today. Think Coco Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, and Yves Saint Laurent. Put in simple terms an influencer can be anyone who influences other people. Coco Chanel, the French Fashion Designer, influenced how women dressed. It was her influence to thank for costume jewelry, women's trousers, and of course, the little black dress.
The formats and means which individuals have and create influence is what has changed throughout time. In the 1920's Chanel gained popularity for her work and unique way of looking at things. Fashion designers still hold a lot of influence seeing as they are largely responsible for deciding what will be on trend for each season, but they are not the only key players in the industry anymore. Today we see top fashion influencers sitting front row at Fashion Week, going on press trips, being heavily involved in advertising and marketing, and much more.
In the early 2000s blogging really started to take off. Blogging offered anyone with a computer the ability to create their own blog about anything and everything. Then in 2010 Instagram launched and changed the game for influencing even more. Suddenly you didn't have to keep tabs on your favorite blogs, but you could have all of your favorite bloggers and influencers located in one app on your phone.
The fashion industry was not extremely welcoming to these bloggers and platforms at first. The fashion industry is often criticized for being extremely cut throat and snobbish. Your place in the industry before influencers was largely based on your connections, title, and what/who you were wearing. It was strange for industry professionals to see these influencers gaining hundreds of thousands of followers and being invited to events and shows out of nowhere.
Over the past few years the industry has opened up to the idea of influencers more and more. Brands are recognizing the power they hold and want in. Many brands are completely changing the way they advertise in order to utilize influencers and their followers.
A perfect example is when Dior relaunched their Saddle Bag in 2018. The bag was seen in Kim Jones's first collection for Dior Men and in Maria Grazia's Fall Winter 2018 collection. In addition to releasing their own marketing campaigns for the relaunch they sent the bags to 100 influencers all over the world. All 100 influencers posted the images at the exact same time that the advertising campaign from Dior came out. It created a craze around the bag, because it was all anyone saw on Instagram that day. Clearly this tactic worked because the bag is still consistently seen in Dior collections and has become an iconic piece for the luxury house.
It's no wonder why influencers have consistently been on the rise. High fashion and luxury can seem so unattainable and unaccessible, but influencers make it seem more accessible to the everyday person. Instead of only seeing high fashion and luxury items at runway shows or in store, you see them on Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, etc. And it's not from people who have been working in fashion for years with tons of connections to the industry. It's everyday people who have a unique viewpoint and have found a way to share it with their audience. Its making the industry much more democratic and taking away the roles of editors from magazines. Everyone is suddenly becoming their own taste makers and more seats are being opened up at the table, which creates a more diverse industry.
In today's post I thought it would be important to include a case study of one of the biggest fashion influencers(if not the biggest) to gain insights into who these influencers are and what they do. We're going to be examining Chiara Ferragni, who was ranked first on Forbes "Top Fashion Influencers" list in 2017, had a Harvard Business School class dedicated to studying her career, and appeared on the Forbes 30 under 30 list of people shaping the Art & Style category. She is an Italian influencer, blogger, and entrepreneur with over 23 million followers on Instagram alone.
She got her start in social media as a teenager when she started posting on an Italian social network called Duepuntozero. It only took her a year on platform to become one of the top profiles. When the site Flikr started to gain popularity she switched over and quickly started gaining popularity on that platform as well.
Then in 2009 when blogs were just starting to grow in popularity she created her blog, The Blonde Salad. She thought of her blog as a sort of home base "where people would come and see your life, rather than posting on other sites". Within the first month of blogging her site reached 30,000 visitors and quickly job offers, proposals, and invitations to Milan Fashion week came in. Soon after that at the age of twenty two she was able to hire a team of ten people to help her run her quickly growing empire.
Although it seems like her rise to fame was seamless, her entry into working in the fashion industry as a blogger/influencer was not so simple. During the early years at fashion shows and industry events the concept of bloggers was still new and strange to an industry typically controlled by those who have years of experience under their belts in the industry and tons of connections. She describes being at events saying "when I arrived in a event I was the youngest and did not know anybody. They would do anything to make me feel uncomfortable". With hard work and time the industry started opening up to her and the idea of influencers more and more.
Throughout her time in the industry she has cultivated relationships with multiple creative directors of brands. Silvia Venturini Fendi, the Creative Director at Fendi recognizes what Chiara brings to the industry not only as a blogger, but as a person. About Chiara she says, "It's not enough to be a blogger to get a front row. Chiara has been able to win a record with her great vision. She has been a pioneer at a time when not everybody understood what was happening, the transformation that was taking place". She has also cultivated a close relationship with Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Creative Director at Dior who she has worked with to design her wedding dress and to promote local Italian craftsmanship at the Dior Cruise Show in Italy this past year.
Over Chiara's career we have seen her platforms and empire continue to grow. She is currently the Chairman and CEO of The Blond Salad Crew, the Chief Executive Officer of the Chiara Ferragni Collection, continues to produce content daily for her 23 million plus followers, has her own film on Amazon, constantly collaborates with brands, and is a mother to her son, Leone, and expecting a baby girl this spring.
The Blonde Salad Crew has evolved a lot from 2009 when it was just a blog. The Blond Salad Crew today is a lifestyle, fashion, and beauty website, e-commerce shop, and a talent agency that manages other fashion and beauty influencers. The agency currently represents Valentina Ferragni, Manuele Mameli, Francesca Ferragni, and Marina de Guardo.
The Chiara Ferragni Collection is a collection of ready to wear pieces, accessories, and shoes that she created in 2013. The started out selling sneakers with her eye logo featured on them, but has evolved into full collections sold by retailers worldwide and flagship stores in Milan, Paris, Shanghai, and Chengdu.
Chiara continues to collaborate and partner with major brands. With her dedicated base of followers and consistently growing platform, it's no wonder that brands are dying to work with her. She is consistently seen at Fashion Week, even now digitally getting sent looks to wear while watching the shows remotely. It's not just luxury and fashion brands that are dying to work with her though. Last fall she created a makeup collaboration with Lancome and last spring she collaborated with Oreo.
"Chiara Ferragni Unposted" is the documentary about Chiara and her career that came out in September of 2019 at the Venice Film Festival. It came out ten years after the creation of her blog and can now be seen on Amazon Prime Video.
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