Among a lot of other digital businesses that thrived during the pandemic is that of the fashion influencers. Fashion brands are desperate to collaborate and even pay them exorbitant moolah to promote their products on social media. While a lot of fashion influencers do hold that credibility and are downrightly talented, there are others who are simply basking in the glory of their mammoth followers who follow them because of their sheer good looks, no matter how downgraded their content is. And the ones who are suffering because of these so-called fashion influencers are professional models, who despite having so many years of expertise in modelling and fashion, fail to strike a chord among social media users.

Some of these models are so stylish and trendy that even fashion designers look up to their style quirks. Models play muse to designers and they showcase a designer’s collection in the best possible way injecting more brilliance into the garment. But in a world obsessed with fashion influencers, these models are surely getting sidelined.

We speak to industry experts as to why they think it’s time models need to amp up their game and why there should be a parameter for any social media user to call himself or herself an influencer. And it shouldn’t be merely on the basis of their number of followers.

“In today’s time, people want to relate to and rely on the opinions of more authentic people. When the content creators get brand associations, they are able to have a certain kind of relatability to that person’s opinion and what matters. A lot of content creators are well-groomed, good-looking, and have a relatable opinion. It becomes an important aspect especially for fashion products, hair, makeup, shoes, or accessories. Anything that is stylish. Even a very successful, good looking models only represent themselves as a model. They are not the user or end result of the product or the brand. Therefore these influencers end up getting more work than models now,” says designer Suneet Varma.

Designer Nikhil Mehra from Shantanu and Nikhil agrees with this opinion of Suneet and says, “We are in a new world. A world that is democratic when it comes to designs. Both are important to us, be it a model or influencer. While the vision of a designer comes through the model, influencers bring their personal style to the table and reach out to their community.”

Modelling agencies are now on a lookout for those models who have a certain number of followers on social media because fashion brands even check the social media profiles of these models before shortlisting them for their campaigns. And so many of them even prefer to cast fashion influencers instead of the models without even looking at their posing skills or modelling experience.

Designer Suneet Varma suggests, “For models to remain in the game, it is definitely going to be the survival of the fittest as will be in all industries and streams of work. The smart models will represent more than just their looks. They have to represent a lifestyle that is relatable. Some of the smarter models have made that shift in the past few years. Become stylists, trainers, brand face of beauty and health products. It’s the way further.”

Models are who they are because of their posing and the way they present a garment and not all fashion influencers can match up to their skills. So for brands to blindly cast influencers to promote their products can’t get them all the mileage. They should prefer quality over quantity in the end.