Of course, fashion tastes can be notoriously subjective, and it is unlikely that you will like the fashion displayed by everybody on our list. Most followers of fashion will know the types of designs they prefer and will have found favorite influencers who promote the types of fashion compatible with their personal tastes. Fashion is also a genre that crosses social media platforms. With fashion being a highly visual industry, those channels that place a high focus on displaying high-quality images are obviously favored here. Instagram is the perfect medium for fashion influencers to display garments and designs, podcasting less so. Fashion blogs are still very important, offering fashionista a place where they can immerse themselves in the latest trends and status symbols. Many fashion bloggers also operate on a combination Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other channels. Some YouTubers have made a name for themselves, by creating fashion and beauty videos. It can be hard to come up with a definitive list of fashion influencers - it is a very popular niche and there are many people who have some influence in the field. Fashion is also a truly worldwide area of expertise, and you can find fashion commentators online providing influence from nearly every part of the globe. In the “real” offline world, people recognize how important European designers are in terms of the fashion world. Things are similar in the online influencer world, with a surprisingly high percentage of the world’s most renowned fashion influencers being European-based. Our list of 15 Fashion influencers contains the fifteen people with the highest TFI scores. The truly are a cosmopolitan group of fashion influencers. There are even a few men included in this influential group.
Below is a list of the Leading Fashion Influencers:
1. Zoella Zeebo
Followers:
Instagram (@zoesugg) - 9.3M, Facebook (@zoella) - 2.1M, Twitter (@Zoella) - 195,700, YouTube (@Zoella) - 10.8M
Zoella Zeebo, also known as Zoe Sugg, is a highly prolific fashion and beauty influencer across a wide range of social media. She created her fashion, beauty and lifestyle blog in 2009. She expanded this into a YouTube channel later that year while she was working for British clothing retailer, New Look. She has made a major impact on YouTube. She operates a couple of channels, with her first channel, Zoella, mainly featuring videos on fashion, beauty hauls and videos on her favorite products. Since then she has subsequently expanded her fashion and beauty social media activities to all of the other main channels and has an extremely large following overall. Her blog and YouTube channels have won her quite a few awards over the last six years, including the Choice Webstar: Fashion / Beauty award at the Teen Choice Awards in 2014 and 2015.
2. Christine Baberich
Followers:
Instagram (@refinery29) - 3.1M, Facebook (@refinery29) - 7.4M, Twitter (@refinery29) - 1.2M
Christine Barberich earns her position on this fashion influencers list for her role as editor-in-chief and co-founder of the award-winning global women’s media company, Refinery29.com. This website reaches 175 million users per month. Christine is is a frequent speaker on new media, content vision, and fashion in the digital space. She writes many of the fashion articles on Refinery29 herself. She co-created Refinery29 in 2005 and has subsequently promoted and grown the website to its current successful position. In 2016 Folio chose her as one of their Top Women Leaders in the Media Industry. She has acted as a brand consultant for a number of firms, including Yves Saint Laurence Fragrance, American Eagle, Prada Beaute and Nine West. She uses social media extensively. As well as the Refinery29 accounts, she has substantial followings on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest in her own name. She uses these accounts to demonstrate and promote what she believes to be the best current fashion trends.
3. Chiara Ferragni
Followers:
Instagram (@chiaraferragni) - 27.3M, Facebook (@theblondesalad) - 1.2M, Twitter (@ChiaraFerragni) - 731,800
Chiara Ferragni is an Italian blogger, fashion designer, and businesswoman. The Blonde Salad is the name she chose for both her blog and her first book. She began her blog in 2009 and in 2011 Teen Vogue profiled her as their Blog of the Year. Her Instagram following had already reached 1 million followers by that point and has continued to grow rapidly since then. Chiara has modeled extensively, making the cover of many big-name modeling magazines, including Vogue three times. She has had numerous fashion collaborations with the likes of Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Max Mara, Chanel, Tommy Hilfiger, J Brand and Seven for All Mankind. She even has her own Barbie doll, with Mattel creating a Barbie version of herself, dressed in Chiara Ferragni Collection clothes.
4. Lauren Conrad
Followers:
Instagram (@laurenconrad) - 5.9M, Facebook (@laurenconrad) - 2.4M, Twitter (@LaurenConrad) - 2.8M
American born, Lauren Conrad first gained fame in reality television show, Laguna Beach, California. As a result of this, she moved to Los Angeles and began a career in the fashion industry. She continued with reality television, however, appearing in The Hills. Lauren launched the fashion lines LC Lauren Conrad and Paper Crown in 2009 and 2011. As a television reality star and a fashion influencer, Lauren has featured on a number of magazine covers, including the May 2012 issue of Glamour, which sold close to 500,000 copies and became the magazine’s strongest-selling issue of that year.
5. Gianluca Vacchi
Followers:
Instagram (@gianlucavacchi) - 22.3M, Facebook (@gianlucavacchiofficialpage) - 3M, Twitter (@Gianluca_Vacchi) - 68,700
Gianluca, the top male influencer on this list, is actually influential for more than just fashion. It would probably be more accurate to refer to him as a lifestyle influencer. He is an Italian-born businessman, and now has a net worth estimated to be $450 million. He lives what he calls on his website, the “GV Lifestyle”, independently wealthy and married to a model. He is particularly active on Instagram, where he shares his style, tattoos, body and dance moves. He spends time with A-listers like Zac Efron. GQ magazine describes Gianluca as the ‘Coolest Man on Instagram’. He has a huge wardrobe collection of stylish and elegant fashion items, which he loves to share on Instagram.
6. Mariano Di Vaio
Followers:
Instagram (@marianodivaio) - 6.8M, Facebook (@MARIANODIVAIO.FANPAGE) - 2.8M, Twitter (@marianodivaio) - 119,600
As his name indicates, Mariano Di Vaio is Italian. He is renowned as a model, blogger, actor and fashion designer. MDV Style is considered to be one of the world’s most popular fashion blogs. It has evolved to cover a somewhat wider focus than just fashion and now is more of a digital magazine covering topics of interest to men, including fashion, sport, travel, music, and movies. As a model, he has made the cover of quite a few magazines. He has worked with famous brands, including Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Cuccinelli, Tommy Hilfiger, Omega, and Cruciani. He is the designer of fashion range, MDV Collections, and is the face of his brand. He has taken the success of his blog (and his offline fame) into social media, and is hugely popular, particularly on Instagram and Facebook. People look to him for advice on male fashion, and he has become something of a Street Style icon.
7. Kevin Ma
Followers:
Instagram (@hypebeast) - 10.3M, Facebook (@hypebeast) - 4.6M, Twitter (@HYPEBEAST) - 887,500
Although Kevin Ma’s website’s name, Hypebeast, doesn’t automatically suggest fashion influencer, it is actually a lifestyle, digital and streetwear focused site, selling streetwear focused fashion. Kevin initially set the site up in 2005 to talk about hyped products on the market, predominantly targeting sneakers, but Hypebeast has since widened its range and moved its focus towards promoting and selling quality fashion products. Unlike many of the top fashion influencers, Chinese-born Kevin does not come from a fashion background. He launched Hypebeast whilst working in at a bank. Finance was not his passion, though, so he set up the website to cover what he really loved - fashion, music and street culture. Kevin’s website has proved to be very popular, gaining renown for its streetwear and fashion coverage. Hypebeast has also built up a sizeable social media following over the last decade.
8. Rati Tehri Singh
Followers:
Instagram (@ratibeauty) - 460,000, Facebook (@indianmakeupandbeautyblog) - 7.4M, Twitter (@IndianMakeup) - 7,500
Husband and wife, Sanjeev and Rati Tehri Singh, started makeupandbeauty.com in 2009, simply as a makeup blog. They began the site because Rati couldn’t find relevant information online suitable for Indians. Since that time they have expanded the website to cover all aspects of fashion that would interest Indian women. The website has grown to the level that it currently has a phenomenal 700 writers, who cover many fashion and beauty brands As a result of this, Rati has become highly influential with Indian women and now works for a number of the fashion brands featured on makeupandbeauty.com. A major part of the blog content covers the personal experiences Rati has had with many fashion and beauty brands. The website actually contains three blogs, with one based in each of India, the Philippines, and Dubai.
9. Xenia Tchoumitcheva
Followers:
Instagram (@xenia) - 2.1M, Facebook (@xeniatchoumitcheva) - 6.1M, Twitter (@xeniatchoumi) - 44,300
Xenia Tchoumitcheva is a Russian-Swiss model, actress, blogger, and entrepreneur. She has a bachelor’s degree in economics and interned at a number of well-known financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch, The London Hedge Fund Duet Group, and JPMorgan Chase. She can speak six languages fluently. She began modeling at age 12, and since then has won a number of modeling awards. She has shot fashion shoots and appeared on the cover of a number of well-known magazines, such as Elle, GQ, and Maxim. She was elected as one of the 99 most influential women in the world in 2016 in the AskMan list. Xenia has modeled for and been the official face of quite a few brands, including Visilab Sunglasses, Revlon Cosmetics, and Swiss Smile luxury products. In 2015 she changed her name by deed poll to the easier-to-pronounce, Xenia Tchoumi.
10. Yu-Ming Wu
Followers:
Instagram (@sneakernews) - 10.4M, Facebook (@sneakernews) - 764,800, Twitter (@SneakerNews) - 1.1M
Hypebeast (which, as mentioned above, was initially set up with a focus on sneakers) has profiled Yu-Ming Wu and described him as being “the epitome of a sneakerhead.” His website, Sneaker News, is recognized as the go-to site for information about things Nike, Adidas, Jordan, New Balance and the like. The Sneaker News Instagram account is undoubtedly the world’s largest sneaker-focused Instagram account. As well as the Sneaker News website, Yu-Ming expanded into a creating a Sneaker News magazine in 2015 (almost encyclopedic in its detail about sneakers) and then started up Sneaker Goods, a sneaker consignment store. There can be no doubt that Yu-Ming is one of the world’s main influencers in the admittedly narrow niche of sneakers.
11. Camila Coelho
Followers:
Instagram (@camilacoelho) - 9.8M, Facebook (@camilacoelho) - 2.5M, Twitter (@camilacoelho) - 259,800, YouTube (Camila Coelho) in Portuguese - 3.4M, YouTube (Camila Coelho) in English - 1.3M
Camila Coelho is a Brazilian beauty and style influencer who runs a renowned self-titled website. She began the site in 2010 with her first tutorial, and it has grown in popularity ever since. She is part of Fhits, a gigantic bloggers network founded by fashion queen, Alice Ferraz, which is based in Sao Paulo. Her specialty is video tutorials of celebrities’ looks, so it should be no surprise that she has built herself up to be a major fashion and beauty force on YouTube, where she has two channels (one in Portuguese and one in English) with over 1 million followers on each. She has over 6 million fans on Instagram, which is also ideal for her visual type of content.
12. Olivia Palermo
Followers:
Instagram (@oliviapalermo) - 7.2M, Facebook (@OliviaPalermo) - 1.3M, Twitter (@OliviaPalermo) - 391,400
Olivia Palermo is an American socialite who rose to fame through reality television series, The City. At the time of the series, she was initially working in the PR department for Diane von Fürstenberg and later the accessories department at fashion magazine, Elle. Olivia signed to Wilhelmina Models in 2009 and appeared on the cover of a number of fashion magazines. She has modeled extensively since then, becoming the face of a number of campaigns. She was named as Chadstone’s first spring/summer 2013 “Icon of Style” and appeared in their “Icons of Style” spring/summer runway show. In 2016, Banana Republic announced her as their first women’s global style ambassador.
13. Hillary Kerr / Katherine Power
Followers:
Instagram (@whowhatwear) - 3.8M, Facebook (@WhoWhatWearAU) - 1.5M, Twitter (@WhoWhatWear) - 2M
Hilary Kerr and Katherine Power are both former editors of fashion magazine, Elle. They launched Who What Wear in 2006, initially as a simple blog with daily fashion news posts. It has since grown into a global fashion brand, adding newsletters, social publishing, and a clothing, shoes, and accessories line selling exclusively at Target. Who What Wear describes itself as being “the leading online platform for premium, shoppable fashion and style content, following the best in celebrity fashion, entertainment, and popular culture.” They break their influence down further when they describe themselves as “catering to trend-setting fashion lovers and their followers between the ages of 18-34.” They claim to be the 3rd largest fashion brand on social media, following Vogue & ELLE. Who What Wear now operates under Clique Media Group (CMG), with Katherine Power being that company’s CEO.
14. Michelle Phan
Followers:
Instagram (@michellephan) - 1.9M, Facebook (@MichellePhanOfficial) - 2.9M, Twitter (@MichellePhan) - 842,100, YouTube (MichellePhan) - 8.8M
Michelle Phan is a make-up demonstrator and entrepreneur, who has been extremely successful on YouTube, with nearly 90 million subscribers to her channel. Although she started her blog in 2005 and her YouTube channel in 2007, it was not until two “How To Get Lady Gaga’s Eyes” makeup tutorials she produced in 2009 and 2010 went viral, that she became a household fashion and beauty name. She has subsequently been appointed as a spokesperson for a number of brands, including Lancôme and L’Oreal.
15. Aimee Song
Followers:
Instagram (@songofstyle) - 390,000, Facebook (@SongOfStyle) - 800,000, Twitter (@AIMEESONG) - 65,000
Aimee Song began blogging in 2008. Songs of Style was initially supposed to be an interior design blog, but Aimee discovered that posts dedicated to what she was wearing performed best. As a result, the blog changed direction, focusing instead on personal style. It now features daily fashion photos and design inspiration. She has created her own jewelry and apparel brands to complement the blog. She has collaborated with companies like LaCoste and Bloomingdale’s. Aimee still balances a career as an interior designer with her fame as an influential fashion blogger.
