As fashion month winds down, the dominance of certain faces opening and closing the runways remains the same. The faces of the girls scoring the headlines for campaigns—with very few exceptions—all seem to be the same too and have the same bio-patterning: rich, white, tall and most importantly social media famous.
Harper’s Bazaar calls it “Social Media Modelling,” while Vogue calls it “the Instagirl era.” The top models of today’s era aren’t necessarily the ones who toiled for years getting their walk right and going to a million and one castings, but the ones who have effectively and skillfully managed their social media accounts by keeping followers glued to their dreamy lifestyles. Girls like Jelena Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner are the new definition of “Top Model”.
They are famous for the fancy screensaver-like vacation pictures, pictures of expensive fashion accessories and the convenient hand-on-the-steering-wheel to show what type of car you are driving type of photos. You get the drift? It’s the life that many young girls want; the material fairytale. Or at least the couple million that follow them on their various social media platforms.
By contrast, there are models like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, who became popular because of their signature walk, or work ethic.
Designers have started to use the popular Instagram celebrities or “It girls” to popularize their brands, ultimately sacrificing the allure of a good catwalk strut before a few hundred for an extended audience coverage over social media. While this may serve as fantasy fulfillment for