YAE

This is more of a think peace about the nature of trying to be influential in the fashion space of Internet celebrity.

All of my favorite influencers have one thing in common: no matter what their budget is they seemingly have overflowing closets and accessories full of every single silhouette, shoe, shape, and jacket in every single color.

I am not going to act high and mighty and say that I only shop if I absolutely need a new pair of jeans, or if my favorite white shirt is permanently stained. I shop as a hobby; I thrift as a hobby.

However I don’t have the budget to strictly shop new sustainable clothing — made in the US—- that doesn’t use micro plastics and pays all of their workers $20 an hour.

I feel like to be a successful fashion influencer you have to either have a lot of clothes or have a lot of archival knowledge of high fashion.

Having a lot of knowledge is a lot more doable but a lot more competitive when you’re competing with the likes of Agus Panzoni’s TheAlgorythm and Mandy Lee’s Oldloserinbrooklyn on TikTok. This is because you don’t want to regurgitate. You want to find information that is in your wheelhouse of expertise and you wanna be the first to report it. Alternatively, it is valuable, to give a really educated and interesting perspective to some thing common or be subversive and be known for giving hot takes. Do uniqueness and having knowledge is your opinion and how you state your opinion but if you’re acting or wanting to act as a textbook for your followers the delivery is what’s going to set you apart from everyone else.