Cara Delevingne's Social Media Cadre

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A view of Cara Delevingne’s Instagram page. Photo By Courtesy Photo

By Jennifer Weil

Her eyebrows have their own Twitter feed.

That’s almost all you need to know about what makes Cara Delevingne one of today’s reigning social-media queens. The model counts more than 7.8 million Instagram followers, 1.4 million “likes” on her official Facebook fan page and 1.9 million Twitter groupies.

She might have a star-studded list of BFFs that includes Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Kate Moss, Harry Styles, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, but on her own, in the first nine months of this year, Delevingne ranked eighth among the most-followed celebrities tracked in fashion on Twitter by Socialbakers, a global social-media analytics company.

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And Delevingne’s digital cred keeps rising, not least during the recent ready-to-wear season.

Over the last Paris Fashion Week, she was the most talked-about model on blogs and Twitter channels monitored by Editd. According to the London-based retail tech firm, Delevingne captured 24 percent of the buzz, compared to numbers two and three:  Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (22 percent) and Karlie Kloss (14 percent).

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No doubt news about Delevingne’s signature thick, dark eyebrows helped fuel the rating. A global gasp resounded from cyberspace after she bleached them for the Givenchy show. The headline on BuzzFeed’s story read, “Cara Delevingne Bleached Her Eyebrows and the World No Longer Makes Sense,” pretty well summing up the collective horror.

So, why all the fuss?

“She’s real, and people can relate to her,” said Wendy Rowe, makeup artist and creative consultant for Burberry, the label for which Delevingne is a face. “She doesn’t make things unachievable.

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“[Cara] is such a statement for people now,” added Rowe, who lauded her personality. “The last person before Cara [with statement eyebrows] was Brooke Shields. So, it’s been quite a few decades.”

“As a catwalk model, she’s tiny. As an icon for girls, she’s perfect—an “It” girl with substance and smarts,” continued Louise Rosen, founder and chief executive officer of The Message Inc., a Paris-based consultancy for luxury brands. “She does a great stretch between fragile [elf] and power goddess — [with] the eyebrows, of course — and we live in a time when it’s all about blending. She is the accidental ‘society’ gigastar who also dresses street. The question is, will she ever put a foot wrong?”

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