Instagram and TikTok go to war at New York Fashion Week

A tipping point is coming as to who will set the next trends and dominate the front rows of New York Fashion Week. For decades, they were the respected editors of the best fashion magazines. Eventually, top department store buyers and designers joined them.

With the acceleration of the internet came the birth of the fashion blogger, with top fashion bloggers such as Bryan Boy and Chiara Ferragni joining the esteemed ranks of the fashion industry’s elite on the front rows of Fashion Week. The age of the blogger evolved into the age of the Instagram influencer as Instagram became a major social media platform. Instagram also became the favorite social media platform of the fashion industry as it is a very visual medium. Fashion, of course, is all about visuals.

Now, with the next decade comes the next generation of influencers, and TikTok is in a rivalry with Instagram for who will claim status on the fashion industry’s favorite social media platform. This struggle is clearly visible at Fashion Month – as the front rows and who the brands are facing are changing.

The Small Business Blog did a study that showed some of the pros and cons between Instagram and TikTok that brands should think about. TikTok proves to have the best average session length compared to other social media apps.

US TikTok users open the app more than 8 times a day. 13.15 percent of the 3.8 billion social media users use Instagram daily and 11.01 percent of the 4.54 billion internet users worldwide use Instagram daily. Instagram also has 1.3 billion users compared to TikTok’s 1 billion, but in 2021 TikTok had 745 million downloads to Instagram’s 545 million. However, 89 percent of marketing professionals prefer Instagram over TikTok for digital marketing.

Brands like Coach love to associate with the next generation of top trend influencers. TikTok star and model Wisdom Kaye was spotted front row at New York Fashion Week at the Coach show. He is also known for receiving lavish gifts from designers, such as Rick Owens, who want to see him wear their clothes at Fashion Week events.

On the other hand, brands like Nicole Miller, who are more tuned into the millennial and older crowd, historically prefer Instagram influencers like Christina Caradona on their front lines.

Gen Z model and influencer Cole Etgen, who has attended and modeled at New York Fashion Week, boasts 70,000 followers on Instagram and over 468,000 on TikTok. While he has a sizable TikTok following, he finds the brands he’s worked with the most on Instagram. “Instagram is the first fashion platform, so people there take fashion more seriously,” he said. “On TikTok, if you’re perceived as attractive and have trendy clothes on TikTok, do well. On Instagram, people are less concerned about being perceived as attractive and there is more of a focus on current fashion.”

Other influencers, like Martin Soto who boasts 244,000 followers on TikTok, find that brands get more traction through that platform. Some brands see TikTok as a more authentic and less curated platform.

“TikTok is better for brands because there is more authenticity in the app,” he said. “Brands can share their products in unique ways. One example is the storytelling aspect of TikTok, where videos can show how a company starts its day. There’s also the ability to share behind-the-scenes footage at things like Fashion Week, and videos can use trending sounds on TikTok to match their content.”

Some of Soto’s sentiments were shared by Justin Kline, co-founder of influencer agency Markerly, in an interview with Forbes. “When you look at brands, Reels got higher engagements and we speculate that this is due to the presences they have been building and cultivating for much longer than on TikTok,” he said. “TikTok made its name with authentic, fun and creative content led by real people, so it’s no surprise that individual users are still winning against brands on the app—TikTokers come to see dance challenges, songs and jokes, not content open brand. .”

Instagram is a much more curated issue with images edited to certain standards, and the platform just shifted its focus to its Reels video component to compete with TikTok. While Instagram may still reign strong as a fashion platform, the need for something less curated to connect with consumers, like TikTok, is something that designers and executives are recognizing. (Both Instagram and TikTok did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.)

“If we look at it from a business perspective, and just the economy and the eye, I just don’t see how a creator can go on just posting on [Instagram] food,” Vanessa Flaherty, president of influencer management company Digital Brand Architects, told Business of Fashion. “It’s kind of a dying breed at this point.”

Fashion designer Adam Dalton Blake, who has appeared at New York Fashion Week in the past, told the Daily Beast, “I’ve found that TikTok has more eyes on it now, and I get a lot more orders from TikTok than Instagram . I definitely don’t have the same amount of interaction that I did on Instagram and I prefer TikTok now because it’s more fun and creative.”

Seating assignments at New York Fashion Week are also seeing a reboot. Last season, the @nyctrends TikTok account posted several videos of front row guests arriving at the show like Tory Burch and Collina Strada. There were occasional comments on the video of “Who’s That?” about the guests. Many of them were rising or current TikTok stars.

Influencers who made big names on Instagram have managed to translate their success on TikTok by moving on to the next thing. Bryan Boy now boasts 3.9 million followers on TikTok, where we see brands accompanying him with gifts like designer handbags. Fashion editor and designer Caroline Vazzana, who boasts 335,000 followers on Instagram but over 550,000 on TikTok, is known for her “Get Ready With Me” videos where she shows people how she gets ready for Fashion Week with her outfits. inspired by Carrie Bradshaw, donated or borrowed. from brands.

Certain brands also tend to favor Instagram influencers over TikTok influencers and vice versa. In February 2020, before TikTok gained more popularity, the app teamed up with IMG, the producers of New York Fashion Week: The Shows, and sent three TikTok influencers to cover the shows including Tory Burch, Alice + Olivia, Rag & Bone, e1972 and Zadig. & Voltaire. This opened these brands up to the world of Gen Z.

On the other hand, in the same season, Instagram sent two stars from the Netflix show Cheersnamely Lexi Brumback and Gabi Butler, to be part of the behind-the-scenes filming and capture them in various front rows.

The Instagram vs. TikTok battle will ultimately be won by two things: visibility and who is helping brands generate a return on investment. Instagram currently has the largest audience, but TikTok is overtaking the platform in terms of new users. Currently, most social media metrics include a sum total of all channels, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter, so it’s hard to say in terms of engagement where one is beating the other.

However, as brands look at individual influencer metrics to see where their best return on investment is, there will ultimately be a clear winner. Until then, the battle between Instagram and TikTok continues.