Tainted Love: Celebrity Influence on the Fashion Industry
Lately as I’ve been searching for fashion articles to keep myself up to date on the latest industry news, I’ve been finding a lot of celebrity focused stories. I’ve never been against the entertainment industry, I’m actually highly intrigued by it and no one would dare play a game of TV or movie trivia against me, however when searching publications for fashion news, I’m not necessarily interested in the fact that Rihanna and Mac Miller partied this past weekend.
This common occurrence of celebrities throughout the fashion sections of many print magazines and online publications is not fading, but instead becoming ever more present. This concerns me. The power of the celebrity can easily take over any platform and apparently fashion is not exempt.
The presence of the celebrity in fashion news also affects the newsworthy aspect of the articles. It has become a concern in fashion journalism that the newsworthy quality of what is being written is depleting. Rather than discussing emerging designers in the industry, the focus of which celebrities are partying with who and which celebrities are dating each other is taking prominence. The celebrity almost seems encouraged in the fashion world more than the elite designers and models that have been present in the industry. I would like to think that it all began with the reporting of which designers celebrities were wearing on the red carpet and spawned from there. All one can hope is that a balance establishes itself in the articles written for major fashion publications.
Another issue with celebrities being included in the fashion sections of magazines is that they are starting to cause confusion as to what is considered to be a fashion icon. Nowadays, the term icon is being tossed around carelessly taking away the titles importance. A term that is being treated in a similar matter is “supermodel.” The word “super” comes as a precursor to model for a reason and today it is being very much so overlooked.
The main celebrities being chastised for this title are Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner. Many supermodels of the industry are hinting at the fact that social media followers are the ones giving Jenner and Hadid the opportunity to walk on runways, not their actual talent as “supermodels.” Rebecca Romijn stated herself in an article for US magazine that, “The thing is, I have always looked to Vogue magazine to lead the way, not be a follower. I rely on Vogue to set the standard, not follow what everybody else is doing. So I have been disappointed that fashion magazines have been supporting this trend of social media stars to set our style standards. But it will change; fashion always does.” Romijn is saying that this idea of a celebrity supermodel will soon fade and the influence of Jenner and Hadid on fashion runways will be a thing of the past. However, I’m not sure I’m so convinced. The power of celebrity and social media has granted us with the gift of the Kardashian and it’s still around, maybe this will be the same for celebrity presence on the fashion runway. One can only wait and see.
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