Hello everyone, and welcome back to week 3 of my blog posts! This week I am going to be focusing on the effect that online social media influencers have had on online fashion, in particular, celebrities who found their fame from reality TV.
Social Media – Instagram
One social media platform in particular that has helped to transform online shopping today is Instagram. Instagram is a photo and video sharing platform used by millions of people worldwide and is one of the most popularly used apps today. Every online shopping website has its own dedicated Instagram page, with people dedicated to posting multiple times a day in order to keep the engagement with their customers and followers. The accounts created by websites such as Pretty Little Thing, Boohoo and ASOS all have millions of followers, demonstrating the power of utilising these new types of media in order to increase their success. A lot of the posts on these accounts are these websites showcasing their newest sales and deals offered for their customers, aiming to incentivise people to visit their websites and encourage them to buy more clothes that they may not really need.
When shopping as a practise began, social media had not been created yet, so these companies didn’t have the opportunity or ability to widen their audiences by the millions that they do now. The use of social media platforms by clothing companies has added a new dimension to their sales, allowing them to track their engagement with each demographic, and to know what kind of posts prove to be most popular with their followers. Not only has social media itself helped to change online shopping, but also the people that use social media as their job, the online influencers.
The Kardashians
Arguably the biggest social media influencers in the world are the Kardashian family, with the main members of the family being Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and recently Kylie and Kendall. The family skyrocketed to fame with their reality show ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ which premiered on E! in 2007, which has since become one of the longest-running and most popular reality shows of all time. With a combined Instagram following of over 600 million people, the social media reach that this family has is arguably unbeatable, and many fashion brands are very eager to get the opportunity to work or collaborate with them. Last year, Kourtney Kardashian released her own collection with online clothing brand Pretty Little Thing, which proved to be insanely popular, some pieces selling out in just seconds.
On the other hands, these fast fashion brands are not just eager to work collaboratively with the sisters, but also to inherently copy them. They often replicate the looks that the Kardashians wear and offer them to their customers for a much lower price, albeit at the expense of higher-quality clothing. In 2018, on the youngest sister, Kylie’s 21st birthday the internet went into meltdown over the outfits worn by each of the sisters, and brands such as Fashion Nova and Pretty Little Thing were very quick to jump on this hype. The next morning, knock-off versions of each of the outfits could be seen selling on these clothing websites. These websites have come under fire for these actions, in particular by Kim Kardashian herself, with the sister filing a $10 million lawsuit against Missguided earlier this year.
Love Island
However, ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ is far from being the only reality show that has skyrocketed its stars to fame, with one closer to home being British reality dating programme, ‘Love Island’. Love Island began airing in 2015, and with each series has gone astronomically in popularity, and has turned many normal people into overnight household names. After each series finishes, clothing brands are fighting to snatch up deals with the stars from the show, attempting to bank on the success of the show and bring new customers to their brand. Two of the most lucrative brand deals to ever come from the show are from last year’s series, with Islanders Molly-Mae Hague and Amber Gill.
After the series, Molly and Amber left the Love Island villa with insane social media followings, with over 2 million and 1.6 million Instagram followers respectively, so understandably online fashion brands were desperate to snap up these new stars. First came Molly Mae’s deal with Pretty Little Thing, with her reportedly landing a £500,000 clothing deal and becoming one of the brand’s central ambassadors. Not long after came Amber, who went one better signing a supposed £1 million (!!!) deal with another online fashion retailer MissPap.
As it is clear to see, this online age of fashion is defined by the power of these social media influencers, with brands working hard to tap into the audiences and fans of these people in order to increase their success. Thank you all for reading this week’s blog post, and see you all back here next week for a special podcast edition of the blog!