Part 1: Influencers Starting Fashion Brands
Since watching the See You Tomorrow and 4 the Mems pyjama drama train wrecks play out on Tiktok, where you can’t watch by damn I can not look away, I can’t help but wonder, should influencers be starting their own fashion brands in the first place?
The rise of social media has transformed the way we interact with fashion. From Instagram to TikTok, influencers have become tastemakers, dictating trends and connecting with consumers on a deeply personal level. These individuals shape opinions, drive trends, and influence consumer behaviour. By cultivating personal brands that resonate with their audiences, influencers leverage relatability and authenticity to build trust.
Often partnering with fashion brands to promote products, influencers serve as the face of campaigns or collaborate on capsule collections.
Their message is essentially: “Hey, check this out, and trust me, you’re gonna love it. I’m obsessed so you will be too.”
While this approach is lucrative, it comes with significant responsibility and accountability.
The Power of Personal Branding
Influencers’ success lies in their ability to create a distinct personal brand. Followers trust them because they appear relatable or, at the very least, aspirational, making their opinions highly influential in purchasing decisions.
Many influencers have taken their careers a step further by launching their own fashion brands, reflecting entrepreneurial ambitions and a unique ability to fill niches in the fashion market. Imagine outfit after outfit, you start to become acutely aware of what is missing in the market.
However, the journey from influencer to fashion entrepreneur is rarely smooth. With built-in audiences and experience working with numerous brands, transitioning to being the face of their own brand seems logical.
However, having a personal brand doesn’t guarantee immunity from the challenges of the fashion industry. Fabric delays, production issues, sampling errors, misprints, and shipping delays are common hurdles, ones that influencers and startups often underestimate.
Why Do Influencers Start Fashion Brands?
Expanding Their Personal Brand
Launching a fashion line allows influencers to extend their personal brand into the physical world. It’s an opportunity to create something tangible that embodies their style and aesthetic.
Monetising Their Influence
While collaborations and affiliate marketing generate income, owning a fashion brand offers higher profit margins and greater control over revenue streams. By cutting out middlemen, influencers have the potential to establish a more sustainable income.
Creative Freedom
Designing a fashion brand provides influencers with the freedom to bring their vision to life. It allows them to address market gaps and offer products that resonate with their followers.
Long-Term Career Strategy
Social media fame can be fleeting. A fashion brand provides a stable (if done right!), long-term business opportunity that can grow independently of their online persona.
Hard Lessons from the Influencer Industry
Pyjama Drama 1: 4 The Mems
The pyjama brand (I use the term brand very, very loosely here) 4 The Mems, was started by lifestyle influencers and sisters-in-law Cecily and Samantha Bauchmann. Their product was a simple one: matching holiday pyjama sets for families. While the idea is cute, it flopped due to poor garment construction, low quality fabric, and an inflated price tag. Where I believe they truly failed was a lack of understanding of their target audience.
Their followers were shocked at the overpriced rayon sets with basic Christmas prints costing $98 per set. Additionally, there was no size charts available or free refunds.
When the influencers lowered the price to $75, claiming no profit would be made, the claim was dubious. Rayon is among the cheapest fabric options. Unsurprisingly, the brand closed, leaving their damaged reputations in its wake.
Pyjama Drama 2: See You Tomorrow
TikTok influencer Madeleine White’s pyjama brand faced backlash over construction, fabric composition mislabeling, and pricing. Allegations of inclusive sizes selling out “suspiciously fast” added to the criticism. While White addressed concerns on TikTok, her responses deflected blame, further alienating followers.
Being an influencer doesn’t make you immune to the complexities of fashion production.
These cases highlight the importance of thorough preparation, quality control, and transparent communication with consumers to maintain credibility and trust in the competitive fashion industry.
Is this business model of influencers going away anytime soon? No, I doubt it. And I believe we will see more and more influencers lean into creating products of some sort in the future.
Keeping Influencers Accountable
Influencers have been held accountable much more this past year, and they need to be very careful with the responsibility they hold.
Remember Pandoro Gate? Italian influencer Chiara Ferragni, who faced scrutiny for misleading advertising practices with Balocco pandoro Christmas cake, has recently been fined over one million euro.
Italian lawmakers have even passed Ferragni Law, a set of regulations introduced in Italy to oversee social media influencers. These regulations aim to enhance transparency, accountability, and consumer protection in the digital marketing landscape, ensuring that influencers adhere to standards comparable to traditional media and advertising channels.
So what’s an influencer to do?
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