'Does fashion have an accessibility problem?'

This piece was originally published on FashionJournal.com.au on the 28th of June, 2016. Available here.

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Before I ever got involved, I found myself at odds with the fashion industry. It was a mystical wonderland that felt foreign to me. Ironic given that I’m a tall, thin gay man.

Accompanying my sister to my first ever fashion show, I felt strangely out of place. I was not well dressed, nor did I know any of the designers. The waiting crowds of dolled-up couture connoisseurs left me feeling like a trespasser.

I was Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada. A film that, coincidentally, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

I wasn’t sure what you were all fussing about. The hype felt bizarre. You were all a gasping Emily, and I, an onion bagel-chomping newbie. 

But when the runway started, suddenly I too was gasping. I was swept up in the atmosphere. I developed a fascination with designers, an understanding of labels and an appreciation for an industry that I had previously been an outsider to. I suddenly knew where I wanted to be.

Even now, years later, as I find myself staggering through runway foyers and hiding backstage, I am filled with that same breathlessness every time a runway starts. I am right where I belong.

I know a lot of people who feel the same. Yet I also know many who, though they might lust for sweet threads and aspire to big brands, still feel like outsiders in a private space.

They’re just not fashun enough, with highbrow frow-dwelling bloggers never ceasing to intimidate. Their looks – their sheer presence – are given the deadly purse-of-the-lips by many an amateur Miranda Priestley.

Like it or lump it, the industry sometimes feels like a battleground. The young and aspiring can feel ousted by the bold and the beautiful. 

The question is: Does fashion have an accessibility problem? Do runways feel less like celebrations of art and more the velvet ropes of country clubs du jour, meant for a certain type of fash-lover?

Not too long ago, fashion was a restricted area; the runway shows only available to the elite of industry figures. There were no bloggers, no sneaky Insta snaps, and no YouTube clips broadcasting twenty minutes of blessed Chanel. Fashion events were exclusive and meant for the crème de la crème of the industry.

Now, fashion is moving towards a consumer model. Shows are becoming accessible to anyone. Runway brands can be purchased post-show, and anyone can buy tickets to shrink around their icons and get glimpses of their future OOTDs. The concept of the ‘insider’ is all but a gimmick.

None of fashions’ elite can agree if this is a good thing. Lagerfeld himself describes the lack of harmony on the topic as “a mess”. Heaps of Paris Fashion Week regulars are straight up rejecting the push, while brands like Burberry have completely gotten on board.

Yet the question still remains: how do we engage the kids? How can we make fashion more accessible to intrigued freshies? How do we diminish the snark of Emily (too) Blunt, and bring out post-transformation Andy Sachs?

One answer is: make fashion funny.

This clip by Matthew Frost for French magazine Jalouse is a divine example of how to satirise a fashion method while still showcasing a brand. Another clip of his starring Lizzy Caplan, simply titled Fashion Film, perfectly lampoons the arthouse fash-flick genre in a way that is funny and appealing.

Vogue produces regular online videos that approach fashion and culture in an entertaining way. Comedian Amy Schumer recently collaborated with Anna Wintour in a hilarious clip, which got audiences laughing with an editor they might otherwise be intimidated by.

(Wintour later went on to describe Schumer as a “very human person” during a speech at Cannes – which is an incredible statement coming from a real-life fashion cyborg. Actually though, ILY goddess Wintour).

Fashion can appeal to the switched-on politico. Sydney model/activist Ollie Henderson made waves at MBFWA in 2014 with the headline-grabbing launch of her label House Of Riot, a brand that continues to intrigue and inspire. It’s fashion that garners interest with politically active young people, giving them people power through clothing.

Whether through comedy or politics, these are whole new audiences given the means to explore and engage with fashion for the very first time.

Ultimately, in this exciting new time of consumer runways and outsiders looking in, should we be appealing to the deliciously scornful Emily, or the ever-curious Andy Sachs?

The masses are being granted access to a previously exclusive realm, and it’s high time we worked out how to bring them into the fray. 

''Influencers' are dying and I'm not sad about it'

This piece was originally published on FashionJournal.com.au on the 6th of June, 2016. Available here.

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The other night I was scrolling my Facebook feed for what felt like hours (because I do nothing with my life), when a link caught my eye. It was an interview on Digiday with an anonymous social media executive, detailing the alleged breakdown of marketing relationships between brands and social media influencers. 

The interviewee harped on about the perils of utilising social media celebs and Instagram stars for branded content and marketing. About how the pool of talent is becoming far too large, meanwhile their pay rates are skyrocketing. About the “decrease in quality” of content being created. “They no longer value their art,” the anon exec sighed. 

It’s finally happening, I thought. The Influencers are dying out.

For years, you couldn’t escape them. Log onto Instagram and there they were, batting their supple lashes and flexing their impossibly toned abs. Have a squiz at any youth pop-culture website, and you’ll see interview after interview with some mega-hot Insta-babe, all thanks to her six-to-seven-digit follower count. 

Instead of frothing over models in bikini advertorials, you could watch the same bombshell plug the same tired skincare label on repeat through her Insta feed. And instead of a few fashion divas plugging sponsored content, there were suddenly hundreds, with fans foaming at the mouth (probably also crying). 

Audiences defined their cool people, and brands responded by putting them on a commercial pedestal, hoping those audiences wouldn’t notice the marketing ploy at play. Sunkissed beach babes. Instagram hunks. Digitally-savvy content creators with massive followings, and companies fighting tooth-and-nail to have them as their spokespeople. These were our Influencers.

It was fun for a good long while but at last, we’re starting to see the glitter fade. And why shouldn’t we? They’ve had their time. 

People are losing interest in influencer marketing – largely because, as it turns out, people don’t like being sold. We went from curiously Googling that brand your fave fashion babe plugged, to scoffing at the blatant sponsored post. That, and if Digiday’s interview and certain fashion-fiascos are anything to go by, all those influencers were starting to get a big head. 

No, not you, Essena. We get it; you don’t live here anymore.

They’re the brand-savvy equivalent of a Pinterest board. The ‘influencer’ label is becoming a cult of no-personality.

Before you think I’m being a bitter old queen, it turns out the research might back me up. A recent survey by Markerly indicated that micro-influencers – those with lesser followings – have relatively higher engagement rates and reach, than influencers with huge followings. 

This confirms what I’ve known all along about the superhot dudes with the six-digit followings I pretend not to lust after: Nobody actually cares. 

Loser. 

(Brb, sobbing @ my reflection.)  

That and we’ve seen the presence of “influential” fashion bloggers become less and less mandatory at events like Fashion Week in the past few years. There are some bloggers I follow through their wanders around these festive annual events – but many are getting the skeptical side-eye more and more.

Of course, with every dwindling industry, there are reasons to be concerned for its loss. 

Frankly, the world needs more content creators. Some influencers give an independent angle to an industry that the traditional advertisers and journos can’t provide with their media obligations and code of ethics. 

That, and for every sell-out hottie being given the boot, there’s a serious creative losing out to the cultural shift. Some of these “influencers” are beyond passionate artists, who are finally getting the credit and social media #impressions they deserve.

So how do Influencers suffer the pain of yet another cultural change in the winds? And what advice can I, a simple media fanatic, give to their future endeavours?

Reveal your dynamic personality. Audiences don’t want unthinking brand-spokespeople as alternative media icons. You can get far enough on Instagram with a ripped physique, but people are clueing in to the Cult of No-Personality.

Sure, young people are always going to be drawn to pretty things. But we dig discourse now and we’re interested in intelligent thinkers. We’re Clementine Ford over Baywatch babes, and Waleed Aly over insert-shirtless-hunk with a brand sponsorship. 

The Influencer might finally be dying, but it’s not all bad. Let’s see if the next generation of content creators can’t put our money where their mouth is.