Hair Care and Style

This story is part of The Business of Influencea new series charting the evolution of fashion’s creator economy, where there’s profit to be made and where the industry is headed next. Read part one here.

What is the career expectancy of an influencer? And in a fast-paced Gen Z world, driven by new social media trends and the rise of TikTok, is it harder to survive as a creator over 40?

Some of fashion’s most prominent influencers have been creating content for over a decade now. US Vogue Business reported in the first part of this series, many saw their blogs morph from a part-time passion project to become a full-time job that put them front and center of brand marketing activities. Now, they are managing a delicate see-saw of personal priorities while working a job that is void of paid holidays, maternity leave and other workplace benefits

It’s true — online shopping has redefined the fashion landscape.

Though in-person days at shopping malls aren’t obsolete just yet, the typical experience is as follows: touch something in store, try it on in a curtained dressing room, tell store clerk you’re going to “think about it” and then look up comparable (sometimes more affordable, too) options from other retailers.

Luckily, Amazon serves as a one-stop shop to snag every stylish find your wardrobe is seeking. Even better, a team of influencers and bloggers share their love for unique Amazon finds (including photos of themselves modeling the outfit for their Instagram feeds) on the retailer’s specially curated “Found It On Amazon” section.

More commonly dubbed as #FoundItOnAmazon, the page makes it easier to locate bestselling items and shop on social. What’s included? An

HypeAuditor, providers of an analytics platform for influencer marketing, found that fashion and retail companies are leveraging influencer marketing on Instagram most frequently.

Of the 10 companies that are most engaged with influencers on social media, nine belong to fashion and retail industries, with Target, Amazon, and Shein topping the list. Netflix, the only non-fashion brand, came in at number 8.

With an estimated 2 billion monthly users and an overall highly-engaged audience, it is no surprise that companies have consistently turned to Instagram to raise awareness for and promote their brands among a wide range of consumers.

Keeping consistent with its performance in 2021, Target topped the list with more than 12,000 unique influencers mentioning it on Instagram in the past six months. Females make up 83 percent of Target’s influencers, with the retailer tapping creators like Olympic Gold Medalist Sunisa Lee and Love is Blind star Lauren Speed-Hamilton

At 22, Elise By Olsen has spent much of her life refusing to be ignored by what she calls the “legitimate” fashion world.

At eight, she started a style and culture blog; at 13, she became one of the world’s youngest editors-in-chief when she founded, published and edited Recens, a glossy style magazine for under-18s. (“It was unheard of that young people would take part in the cultural conversation or the fashion industry,” she says.) Later, she launched Wallet, a fashion industry journal with what WWD described as a “sharp, critical pen”.

The wunderkind from the Oslo suburbs has worked as a cultural and branding consultant and at 17 joined a creative residency at Google in Paris at the invitation of Hans Ulrich Obrist, the curator and art critic. Her early magazines were, she says, born of frustration: “People in fashion hold on to their positions, even though they might