Influencers are Out, Talent is In
Influencers are Out, Talent is In
Balenciaga's weird Fall 24 talent strategy, Tory Burch girl tiers, and Thom Browne's talent roster that makes me blush
For a couple of days this weekend I couldn’t escape Balenciaga on my feed. At first, I thought it was just an Erewhon collab because I kept seeing the black juice with Balenciaga’s logo printed largely across the bottle. That in itself didn’t seem like a huge deal - think Maison Margiela x Tony Cash noodles, Vetements Burger and Erewhon’s own collab with Cactus Plant Flea Market on a smoothie and some merch that I actually like, that happened earlier this year. I thought “ugh if only it wasn’t Balenciaga, I would have maybe tried to cop something,” because wearing Balenciaga is still sort of a taboo after last year’s child ad scandal - or so I thought. Even when I started seeing pictures of models walking down the Windsor Boulevard in a fashion show, I thought it looked a little too gimmicky to be a real runway show and a little too extra to be an Erewhon collab activation. It took me a while to accept that what I was looking at was Balenciaga’s Fall 24 show.
Without getting into the fashion takes territory, I find the PR and talent part of the show insanely fascinating. When the child ad scandal happened last year, I watched influencers reluctantly put away their Y2K-looking Le Cagole and City bags and celebrities and their stylists stay away from Balenciaga pieces at red carpets and photoshoots. For a few months, Balenciaga was out even though most people didn’t care much about the substance of the scandal - they just didn’t want to accidentally get mixed up with QAnon. I first started seeing Balenciaga pop up in my feed again when they seemed to have signed Rachel Sennott. Riding the latest wave of fame from co-writing and starring in the movie Bottoms and being on The Idol, she was very much part of the young hot talent group that was being scooped up by the big fashion houses during the NYFW in September. When I first saw her rep the brand, I had questions: Is wearing Balenciaga okay again? Why on earth would she choose to be associated with a brand that’s controversial? (She has to be signed right? Why else would she be doing a PR interview like this?)
The amount of what looks like paid talent at Balenciaga’s Fall 24 show on Windsor Boulevard was jaw-dropping. Old friends of the brand Nicole Kidman and Kim Kardashian, the it girl of the year Gabbriette Bechtel, Devon Lee Carlson, Nicola and Brooklyn Beckham, Joey King, Keytranada, Vittoria Ceretti, Lucas Sabbat, photographer Nadia Lee Cohen, and even people who usually don’t do this kind of thing, like Dylan Minnette from the band Wallows and his 13 Reasons Why co-star Brandon Flynn, just to name a few. “Can you even fit that many chairs on a street?” I thought to myself.
The most bizarre part of it all is that the majority of the talent seemed to have gotten a paid story and feed post contract on top of the invite to the show as if this was a holiday social media campaign for idk…Revolve? The talent team at Balenciaga put in overtime and likely a lot of money into something that looked like a much more expensive equivalent of a last minute TikTok influencer campaign pulled by a talent team four tiers below them. All after a very thoughtfully curated cast and guest list for the Summer 24 show, that seemed to have worked quite well at restoring Balenciaga’s brand in September. What happened there? And also, why aren’t there any traces of Balenciaga on Erewhon’s IG (they can deal with a Tinx smoothie but draw the line at QAnon)?
One thing is for sure though - fashion is gravitating towards talent over influencers again. There was a brief moment in time when big fashion brands didn’t know what to do with TikTokers just yet and after watching Louis Vuitton pick up Emma Chamberlain and turn her into a Cartier-wearing Met Gala red carpet girl that she is today, took a chance on the Addison Raes and Charlie D’Amelios of the world and dressed them for Met Gala, flew them to Paris and filled their after party guest lists with a good amount of Soho fit check girls. By now, most brands have gotten a grip on where influencers belong in their fashion and beauty ecosystem, if anywhere at all.
One of my favorite talent strategies in the business is by Tory Burch. They have Emrata and Vittoria Ceretti walking down the runway and star in their billboards, Devon Lee Carlson doing man on the street interviews, Suki Waterhouse, Emma Roberts and Hari Nef at their shows, influencers, like Kennedy Eurich (why is she the only one not getting tagged in posts from the brand account lol?) at holiday dinners, and serious business and fashion women at their charity events. The catch is - majority of the time, these groups don’t mix. They send Emrata in the most gorgeous gown to the Met Gala and then host an influencer Ruby Lyn for a dinner but you will never see the two at the same table, in the same room even. The only people who I’ve seen consistently transcend between the tiers of Tory Burch’s talent roster are the people who have been in contact with celebrities through their interview work, like Reece Feldman and Davis Burleson. But even though both have emerged from TikTok, their careers have grown into something much bigger. And actually, the rest of their influencer roster is so gorgeous, that I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point, the majority of it will transcend into the modeling talent roster.
My favorite talent move is when a brand essentially becomes a character in the talent’s universe. Even though I am feeling a little worried watching Rachel Sennott commit so much to being a Balenciaga girl - it does suit her personality quite well and she reps them in a really tasteful way (thank you to my favorite stylist Jared Ellner). It’s quite similar to Sydney Sweeney being a Miu Miu and Armani Beauty girl - although she was a Tory Burch girl first, maybe Miu Miu was cooler or maybe Tory could no longer afford her. I love what Dior is doing with Brittany Xavier by hosting her (I think second?) baby shower and gifting her entire family through their growth. I really respect the way certain brands work with Emma Chamberlain - from Louis Vuitton back when her transition into high fashion started to Cartier, Lancome, Levi’s, Canon and Aritzia in the present day. The fact that an average fan of Emma could easily name a couple of brands she’s worked with says a lot about how much loyalty and consistency do for a brand. In the world where brand partnerships are so saturated and interchangeable and it’s kind of nauseating to be exposed to so many of them on a daily basis, being able to create direct associations between a person you look up to and a brand is worth a lot.
A fashion brand that I think does that really well and whose overall media strategy has me in awe is Thom Browne. They’ve got the founder of the brand Tom Brown chatting with one of my favorite and most hilarious British writers Raven Smith, a heartwarming product placement in the latest season of The Bear, stunning Met Gala gowns and this adorable holiday ad (maybe the most adorable holiday ad from a luxury fashion brand that I’ve seen this year). Their talent roster makes me blush, and they want nothing to do with influencers - except for Emma Chamberlain, but is she even an influencer anymore?