Fashion YouTube Influencers

An influencer is a person or thing that influences another — and fashion is one of those super-niches where certain influencers can make a huge impact, dictating the direction of the entire industry. On YouTube, that influence is exercised on camera, to audiences of millions.

From Magazines to Video Influencers

Fashion influencers have always been important to the apparel industry; what changed is their tools. In the past, fashion magazines were a primary force in the marketplace — they held consumers' attention and strongly influenced brand awareness and purchasing decisions. Style magazines are still important, but the internet created an entirely new generation of influencers with direct access to audiences.

YouTube videos developed into a great platform for them. Fashion influencers create videos, or comment on videos created by others, and their large followings give them access to a large audience — which is why some companies utilise popular influencers to promote a particular product or brand. The fashion influencers term page linked here defines the wider category.

Vlogging and the Fashion Names

Vlogging — the practice of posting short videos to, or maintaining, a vlog — is the format much of this influence travels in. In influencer marketing, YouTube is regarded as the pinnacle of social networks, and the influence of its stars on younger audiences goes well beyond shopping; the platform itself functions as a social network on which almost anyone can upload videos seen almost immediately by wide audiences.

Fashion's own YouTube influencers include Zoella, Chiara Ferragni, Lauren Conrad, Camila Coelho, Olivia Palermo, Michelle Phan and Aimee Song, among others named in the wider list linked from this page — creators who turned personal style into publishing businesses. The platform's biggest general names, such as PewDiePie and Nigahiga, show the scale of audience YouTube can build, even outside fashion.

How Influencer Influence Is Counted

A brand choosing a YouTube influencer is buying a measurable thing and an unmeasurable one. The measurable part is the audience: subscriber counts, typical view counts, and how many viewers match the brand's customer. The unmeasurable part is trust — whether the audience believes the creator would refuse money for a product they disliked, which is the asset that makes a recommendation convert into sales. The two measures can disagree: a smaller channel whose creator is known for refusing sponsors routinely outsells a larger channel that promotes everything. Viewers hold the same audit from the other side. A fashion influencer's back catalogue is a public record of judgement — what they praised before they were paid to praise, and what they stopped wearing once the campaign ended. Fashion's older gatekeepers, the magazines, were audited the same way by their readers over years. The medium changed from print to video, as this page describes; the currency, an audience's belief that the voice is honest, did not change at all.