While most teens and early twenty-something’s are off living seemingly normal lives, a few are lucky enough to be launching blogs, creating snazzy GIFs and dare we say, designing collections for clothing brands. This is quickly becoming a reality as millennials look for creative ways to harness their entrepreneurial spirit. Already, 60 percent of millennials consider themselves entrepreneurs and are looking for opportunities for self-employment.
A popular choice among young adults today is to step into the blogging and vlogging world. Blogging, what was once considered simply an online outlet for personal thoughts, has blossomed into a lucrative business platform that millennials and brands are embracing together. The most inspired brands are now working alongside with popular bloggers to create a partnership that is resulting in higher numbers of brand ambassadors.
Tolly Dosh Posh for Mooi en Lief
14-year-old fashion blogger, Tolmeia of Tolly Dolly Posh has been running her blog since the early age of 11. What started as a summer project and creative outlet for her love of fashion turned into something much more than that; she now inspires her readers with her quirky fashion sense, outfit posts and DIYs. She’s not afraid to be herself and that says a lot for a 14-year-old. She uses her blog as a stepping-stone to get closer to her true passion – designing clothes – so she can help other women feel confident in what they’re wearing.
Mooi en Lief, a Dutch brand that specializes in wellington boots for young children and teens saw the value in partnering up with Tolmeia and secured an exclusive license with her to co-create a collection of socks and tights.
“We are incredibly excited to be working with Tolly on this fashion collaboration,” says Jacquelina Deerenberg, General Manager of Mooi en Lief. She adds, “For us it is not just about her amazing talent as a fashion designer. Rather, we love her expressive and quirky style and recognize the wider package that she has, to enable a commercial success out of such a collaboration.” The collection is set to launch in early 2015.
Further to Tolmeia’s credit, she was shortlisted for the “Best Teen Style Blogger” award by Company Magazine Blogger Awards in 2013 and 2014 and has been featured in UK magazines as well as BBC Radio 4.
Bethany Mota & Aeropostale
Bethany Mota started making videos six years ago when she was only 13. However, her introduction to the vlogging world does not follow the traditional path. After being cyber-bullied by three people in her school, she started watching YouTube videos as an outlet to distract herself from the negativity. It wasn’t long before she decided to start creating her own videos. While she had zero expectation of anyone watching them (she just wanted to share the voice she didn’t have when she was bullied), she can now report over 8 million YouTube subscribers and other hefty social media followings to match. Her quirky personality is completely relatable, which she proves time and time again through her beauty, hair, fashion and DIY tutorials.
Now that her followers and fans have gained access to her seriously cool but totally relatable personal style (she films all her videos from her bedroom), creating a clothing collection that her millennial following can wear couldn’t be more fitting.
When clothing and lifestyle brand, Aeropostale experienced declining profits, they turned to the teen vlogger star to help kick start sales again. Combined with the home collection she also designed for Aeropostale, the company generated more than $50 million sales in 2014. How’s that for kick starting sales?
An incredibly profitable market, it seems fashion brands are getting smart about partnering with millennial influencers that reach a young tween and teen demographic through online blogging platforms. These are just a few of the most recent blogger-brand collaborations we’ve seen lately but we suspect they won’t be the last.
