Social media might be a tool for narcissists and wannabes, says Jane Fayle, but it’s also the breeding ground of the next generation’s brat pack. Through it we are offered a #nofilter look into the lives of those we admire, or at the very least, aspire to share a wardrobe with.
Thanks to social media, living your life vicariously through other people richer and cooler than you is easier than ever. For most of us, it begins with a quick scan before we even get in the shower of a morning.
Because of social media, I can now follow my favourite girls about town for a daily dose of fashion inspiration and am hit with an abundance of ideas that will help me put together an outfit with just one refresh of a button. Not to mention I can swoon over how jealous I am to not have their lives (think Lily Rose Depp’s makeup skills, Kylie Jenner’s expanding Hummer collection or Bella Hadid’s crew of best friends and beautiful siblings) …Thanks to social media, their daily diaries bring us that one step closer to understanding the super cool on a more personal level.
Whether or not that’s actually a good thing overall remains to be seen. But for the fashion conscious, I’m going to say yes. Where editorial shoots focus on the latest trends from Maison Margiela to Miu Miu, through social media, we’re shown what style is from their point of view and where it will be going next. When Cara Delevigne appeared in and posted Instagram pics of herself in LA with the Kardashian / Jenner sisters and mentioned a collaboration, people were wondering what was going on. When Kim Kardashian posted a photo of herself with bleached eyebrows on the same night and mentioned LOVE Magazine, it was pretty easy to get ahead of the fashion game and work out who the editorial stars of its next issue would be. And it’s not like these teasers did anything to take away from its selling power either – it was their highest selling issue to date. It’s just that in our fast paced lives that requires everything to happen now (including the constant movements of our favourite style icons) we need channels like Instagram more than ever. If you don’t know about Lily Rose Depp’s ‘Sour Sixteenth’ birthday or Bella Hadid hanging out in Cannes in between shoots then I’m sorry to break it to you, but you may be living under a rock.
Born into families that allowed them to crawl the red carpet before they could walk it, these kids are still for the most part, teenagers, and need to find their own place in the world of stardom, and they certainly are with the help of social media. Being scooped up as muses, the new faces of campaigns and making appearances at the latest parties, they’re making their own mark within the fashion industry at a very rapid pace. Not to say they don’t have other business ventures along the way, Jesse Jo Stark, daughter of Laurie Lynn and Richard Stark (owners of the label Chrome Hearts) just released her first EP last year and has also worked on the Chrome Hearts label amongst a number of other creative endeavours.
With their fingers in many a pie I tend to think this is a smart approach in our five minutes of fame society. We are a generation of slashies – models/musicians/actresses/designers. Unfortunately, we damn well need to be if we’re going to have a lasting career in the creative industry these days. Who knows when they are going to fall from hot to not? In exchange for our abundance of options we have become a lot more fickle and thus, going from love to hate, top 8 to bottom 80, follow to unfollow, regram to regret and back again in a matter of seconds.
For now, these girls have started a cult following on their Instagram feeds and we are lapping it up. Kylie Jenner has 25.9 million followers. To put that into perspective, that’s more followers than the entire population of Australia! You might be saying ‘I hate Kylie Jenner’ and yes you may, you’re entitled to, but, 25.9 million people around the world don’t, and that’s a figure that stands on its own. This type of following has pushed the growth of her and her contemporaries careers into a fashion forward stratosphere with brands begging to get on board. Splashed over the cover of every magazine, if not right now then just wait a couple of months, guaranteed.
Whether you think of it as a scheme of seamless self-promotion – we are all guilty of falling under the spell of social media. Let’s not fight it. These Instagram cult followings are part of the everyday for a lot of us. They just have an effortless aura and if you don’t want to see their lives documented before your eyes. It’s simple you can click unfollow.
To read my original article from Spook Magazine please click here.
JANE FAYLE 