Introducing TH_RLTY_SHW, the Instagramazine You Should Start Following Now
She’s not a blogger. She’s not an influencer. But she does spend quite a lot of time on Instagram.
Tiffany Godoy, an American in Paris by way of a long stint in Tokyo, launched TH_RLTY_SHW, which is short for The Reality Show, her five-year-old magazine, on the social media app today, just as the couture shows here are heating up. The account is no mere afterthought produced by a print-first publication. Quite the contrary, Godoy has put the biannual magazine on hold, to focus on what she’s cleverly dubbed her “Instagramazine.”
“We want to be present where everybody is,” says Godoy, who in addition to her magazine duties has created and directed content for brands like Cartier and Lane Crawford and hosted a podcast series for Chanel. (She’s also a contributor to Vogue.com.) In her time in the digital trenches, she’s learned the value of video. Every single one of the three dozen or so posts currently live on TH_RLTY_SHW features moving imagery. Like, really moving. Behind the mini interviews she’s produced with designers Martine Rose and Alyx’s Matthew Williams are scrolling collages of their work, inspirations, studios, and more. “It’s like having a search engine while you’re listening,” Godoy explains. “Instead of watching something and digging around online after, we’re almost doing the work for you.” Also: “It’s a visual world,” she says. “Those visual essays are aids to narrate the conversation for our friends that don’t speak English.”
If Netflix is the streaming option for television audiences, Godoy would like the TH_RLTY_SHW to be the streaming option for the Instagram crowd. Beyond the fashion, beauty, travel, lifestyle, and culture buckets she’ll be building content for, she’s also developing “evergreen” stories that are more timeless than timely. The account’s July cover story is “China Obsession,” a subject Godoy knows something about from all the business she does on the mainland and in Hong Kong, but she’s enlisted a good group of locals including designer Masha Ma, influencer Leaf Greener, and the select store Hug in Chengdu to do the storytelling.
Instant coverage isn’t really part of TH_RLTY_SHW plan, its platform notwithstanding. Godoy’s content from the Paris men’s shows is just starting to roll out, a week after their conclusion, and her haute couture coverage will be scrollable later in July. She reasons, “we can’t keep up with the majors, we’re a small team. Our approach is more personal.” It sounds lofty, maybe, but Godoy is keen to “bring a little more depth and humanness to fashion, as opposed to just the consumption aspect.” She’s not afraid of the e word: educational.
We asked her for her standard elevator pitch. Godoy called TH_RLTY_SHW, “MTV meets Oprah meets your favorite influencer.” You’d watch that, wouldn’t you?
