FORFACESAKE LONDON

Today, FORFACESAKE LONDON is turning to Greece for its next FACELESS FOCUS… to Kristen Leo to be more precise. A fashionable girl, who occasionally puts on a great faux French accent to tell us that “real fashion isn’t about following trends but movements that bring us into a better future.” After committing forty-nine minutes of my afternoon to what ended up being a chilled chat about influencers in the fashion industry – I’m a new subscriber. Her voice is easy on the ear and her message, important to consider. I just wanted to speak on a few things I found really interesting about Kristen’s take on fashion “influencers”.

“real fashion isn’t about following trends but movements that bring us into a better future.”

So, what is an influencer? Kristen says people with a big audience - whether they be actors, singers, public figures... even teachers. When you have the opportunity or a platform to impart information to lots of others - congratulations, you're an influencer whether you like it or not. Here though, Fashion Influencers are at the centre of attention. Not because they are encouraging you and me... and probably your sister and aunt... and maybe even your grandma to shop our own wardrobes or invest in sustainable fashion – but because they continuously endorse brands that seem to have little care for our planet and feed a culture of hyper-consumerism, one haul at a time.

I would imagine that a surgeon who encouraged his patients to drink alcohol during surgery instead of using anaesthesia, would be out of a job pretty quickly. Similarly, Kristen is of the opinion that fashion influencers should not be able to promote such outdated and environmentally unfriendly ways of being fashionable. In their capacity as “Human Billboards”, it should be an influencer’s job to actively and creatively produce content that encourages forward-thinking. Whilst I agree with Kristen, I’m sure there are those who would argue that actually influencers have free-range and can promote whatever they choose. The soft drinks industry does not generate billions of dollars by marketing how bad they might be for your teeth, just like many fashion houses aren’t exactly going to advertise the fact that a £5 dress is probably just as wasteful as the packaging in which it was delivered.

...in their capacity as “Human Billboards”, it should be an influencer’s job to actively and creatively produce content that encourages forward-thinking...

Fashion Influencing has become a full-time job for a whole load of people, and a seemingly well-paid one at that. Those that gain loyal and active million(plus)-strong followings, also gain the opportunity to earn upwards of $10,000 for a single post! A couple of those a month are you’re pretty much set. The nature of social media though – Instagram particularly – means that almost anyone with a “sense of style”, the ability to create “a cool aesthetic”, whilst being somewhat “original” can become one of these human billboards that companies will pay an arm and a leg (to us regular folk) to market the most trendy items. In an environment where advertising fast-fashion has actually become some people’s whole livelihood, I think we need to ask ourselves, at what point the onus should be taken off the influencer for literally doing their job, and actually placed on fashion houses and companies to clean up their act.

This question is one that has recently been addressed, in part, by H&M's CEO who argues against what he calls "consumer shaming", which I think is a clever way of conflating a lot of the issues surrounding fast-fashion and its socio-economic-environmental impacts...

Having said all that, what role do we play as consumers – “the influenced”? After all, influencers can’t influence without their audience. This is where Kristen brings things to one of my favourite topics – education. Personally, I think it’s too much of an oversimplification to suggest that we all care more about being “fashionable” than our planet and its people.

...it’s too much of an oversimplification to suggest that we all care more about being “fashionable” than our planet and its people...

Sometimes, the cute blue dress is nothing more than a cute blue (and very affordable) dress. However, if we were more aware of where that dress came from, what it took to make it, and who potentially suffered in the process, we’d be equally conscious of how many times we clicked ‘add to basket’ and ‘proceed to checkout’.