Why Substack is winning Fashion
Desperate for resources they can trust, consumers cast another vote for human-led curation. It's a win for platforms like Substack.
Remember this number: 80%
That’s the percentage increase in subscriptions within Substack’s fashion and beauty category year over year.
Noria here. One of our first events of NYFW this season was at the home of Jess Graves. Called “Pop-In at the Park” it was an all-day shopping event, featuring Jess’ tight edit of designers, who set up shop in the living room, bedroom, and backyard garden. That’s how my colleague Carrie and I found ourselves picking out hats from Gigi Burris, finally getting to hold a Esha Soni bag IRL, sniffing fragrance from Kindred Black, getting fitted for shirts from Chava Studio, and drinking Ghia. How did we score an invite? Because we subscribe to Jess Grave’s substack The Love List… and here’s where we understood the full power and potential of Substack in fashion.
Substack is a fashion garden that has just started to bloom.
Lo and behold, good content sells
It’s like Fashion Blog 6.0? Lots has evolved since Tumblr and Wordpress days (I indeed had a food blog called At First Bite while a fashion editor at Lucky in the early 2000s). Fashion creators are now savvy to the business of influence today, using affiliate and partnerships as a means to make their personal passion… commercially viable (one reason of many At First Bite went dormant).
And they are converting. My friend, a designer with a small studio who recently collaborated on a product with a popular Substack newsletter, admitted to being floored and utterly un-ready when the newsletter’s publication resulted in 75 orders coming in the first 45 minutes. She had been expecting less than ten orders… because, well, it’s just a newsletter.
It’s not just a newsletter though. The nature of the Substack platform, which prioritizes thoughtful content and expertise, is fertile ground for magazine editors and fashion lovers who crave more substantive exchanges. Take a look at the chat rooms in some of these newsletters and you will see a hyper active community… and it’s a big reason these newsletter authors seem to love it.
It makes sense, especially if you are not a Tik Tok native.
Tik Tok and Tik Tok Shop are overwhelming, young, and the quality of goods is questionable, leading to a rise of “who do I trust.”
For now, Substack’s lower inventory of creators, and the pedigree of some of the creators (worked in fashion and/or journalism) helps create a sense of trust and assures the subscriber of expertise.
Becky Malinsky of Five Things You Should Buy, whose brand promise is “I scroll so you don’t have to” told The New York Times her audience “sweet spot” is 25- to 50-year-olds who aren’t on TikTok and want a place to find fashion advice that isn’t “just tap-click-tap-click.”
Why substack and not IG?
One, it’s a human-led newsletter delivered to me, that I had to sign up for. Two, because my IG feed runs like a 24/7 shopping channel for a middle-aged woman with a need for hormone-supporting supplements. It’s not fun and not inspiring.
In the early 2000s I worked for Lucky Magazine. You know, the magazine about shopping. I feel the promise of Lucky revived in Substack, and not just because there’s a few Lucky alums (Becky Malinsky, Elise Loehnen, Laurel Pantin) writing. This season is the first time I have relied on substack newsletters almost exclusively to help me figure out where I’m going to invest my time/money in… because the content is TRULY HELPFUL AND GOOD.
It does help to know these people worked in magazines.. It’s like a verified badge of integrity, work ethic and taste level (Condé Nast was good for many things!).
It’s not all former editors..I follow a few substacks that are entrepreneurs (Meg Strachan, founder of Dorsey, Melanie Masarin, founder of Ghia). I like when the fashion is mixed in with other things… like food, travel, wellness. It adds a bit of dimension for me… like here’s people with other full-time jobs outside of substack, living their life and sharing it with me.
It all points back to the simplest of truths: word-of-mouth is really the most valuable influence there is… and it pays to be an expert at what you do.
Where this goes is likely up up up for a while, until Substack has some kind of reckoning.. but for now, this quote:
As many consumers mark high street and luxury brands’ weekly marketing emails as spam, these shopping Substacks feel like a systematic shift in the future of retail.
-The Guardian, “Why Shopping Influencers are Flocking to Substack”
Indeed, brands are paying attention. J. Crew and Free People are just two brands that allocated budget to Substack recently, with Free People saying they thought Substack was “the next Instagram.” And fashion/shopping sub stackers are wise to the game- nearly all of them use affiliate links (this fact is a bit more polarizing for those seeking pure un-influenced influencers).
Here’s a fashion substack starter kit if you’re not yet following:
Laura Reilly, Magasin
Jess Graves, The Love List
Laurel Pantin, Earl Earl
Becky Malinsky, Five Things You Should Buy
Sara Shapiro, Retail Diary
Leandra Medine, The Cereal Aisle
Liked this post? Let us know.. and we’d love to hear who you trust for fashion/style recommendations and shopping.
I completely agree with all the reasons you spell out as to why Substack is winning in fashion, Noria! The “tell a friend” concept makes it feel very personal and provides a keen sense of discovery in the chats when others are engaging in topics relevant to our curiosities. I’m not writing on Substack… solely reading, and I find it all very engaging and thought provoking ! Being a company owner in the fashion space, I have had many great learnings and trend insights come from Substack and I forward articles profusely to others when I see something they’d benefit from reading. Keep the posts coming - love reading what you have to say !
I 100% agree. And I believe in remuneration for content creators. But the variety of subscription tiers, publishing frequency, and paywalls I hit when I’m not yet sure whether I am prepared to commit is Byzantine. It’s subscription overload in $8 increments and a messy user experience right now.