Male Musicians Are the New Influencers
A few months ago, Lil Uzi Vert starting balling out on Instagram. Uzi has always been a force of fashion, but suddenly he was posting carousels of fit pics, highlighting the accessories, shoes, and various angles of his complex outfits. He posed with it-bags, wore head-to-toe Gucci, and mixed the hottest new collabs with inner-circle merch, like the Chanel x Pharrell terry cloth bag with a Beyonce Homecoming sweatshirt. Like the rest of the world, celebrities have gotten more comfortable with posting selfies and sharing glimpses of a “realer” them, but Uzi’s new attitude on Instagram seemed to suggest something more than social media fluency. He’s showing off his grails in the same way that influencers boast about their enviable wardrobes. He even added “No stylist” to his display name!
And Uzi isn’t the only one showing a new allegiance to the cult of fashion. A$AP Rocky’s fanatical devotion to fashion has been a part of his digital presence since before he joined Instagram. He even started the babushka trend there, after he shared photos of his scarved look for a Gucci event this past winter; Uzi, Frank Ocean, and others then followed suit with their own babushka selfies. Justin Bieber, too, posts photos showing off his outfits on Instagram, particularly when they involve his clothing line Drew. Yesterday, he even posted a slideshow of all the outfits he planned to wear this week.
In some ways, these musicians resemble the first wave of outfit-chronicling menswear bloggers. And yet they’re going even a step beyond blogging. (Wow.) These men have become full-on influencers. We have largely become exhausted by that term, which suggests an existence spun out of flattering photographs of a semi-fictional life and maybe like, a totally random brand sponsorship. But in menswear, the rawness of the photographs has been there from the beginning, and the fun these guys seem to be having is the guiding attitude. (It helps that none of them are showing things off merely to thank brands for their gifting generosity; there are no “#thankyou!!! #ad” captions here, at least.) Plus, the idea of someone who is already famous sinking into that level of fandom is just inspiring. Stars: they’re just like influencers!
Is Fashion OD’ing on Logomania?
Speaking to the New York Times Magazine, Dapper Dan answered a question as to whether logomania, which he pioneered, represents an obsession with materialism, or something “healthy or unhealthy.” Quoth Dap: “It’s all right to have one glass of wine. Not the whole bottle.”
Is Donatella Versace...a Diplomat?
In an interview with the New York Times leading up to Pride last weekend, Donatella Versace explained that she was reading The Mueller Report. “You look at him know he’s telling the truth,” she said, and: “he is good-looking.” She then said (or joked?) to the reporter, “Don’t print this. I’ll lose my visa.” Which is absolutely why Donald Trump would revoke someone’s visa—a level of nuanced intuition about Trump’s judiciousness and impulses that few people possess. Viva la Donatella.
Originally Appeared on GQ
