They’ve been “It” girls, they’ve been bloggers, they’ve been influencers, they’re now maybe content creators — and despite skepticism from some of the editorial elite, they’re as much a part of the fashion industry as ever. Our feeds today have never been more flush with people who are their own brand, who are making careers out of partnerships and appearances and paid posts. The longevity of this largely remains to be seen: what does it take to truly build influencing into a career, how does one stay relevant, how do you scale into a major business?
Enter Olivia Palermo. Initially rising to fame courtesy of a role on the reality series “The City,” beginning in 2008, the New Yorker has been dubbed a socialite, an “It” girl, and, yes, an influencer (a term she doesn’t love), all the while maintaining relevancy in the fashion world. She’s collaborated with brands from Karl Lagerfeld to Banana Republic and Scalpers; she’s had her own site, fashion line and beauty brand and a full staff of people, only now to be a one-woman show. Interest in her has never wavered over the years, with consistent growth to 8.2 million followers on Instagram — a platform she maintains she doesn’t quite understand, but behind the scenes is wielding to success.
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“I always had a feeling I was going to be kind of in the public eye,” Palermo says. “I had a sense of it. I didn’t know why, I’m a very private person. But I had a sense of it, somewhere along the line it was going to happen, be part of my career. Luckily, I’ve navigated it really well.”
Moments before, Palermo has breezed into the restaurant at Fouquet’s in TriBeCa, gushing with apologies for her 30-minute-late arrival and unhooking a bedazzled handbag from her arm as she swings into a booth. She’s as kempt for a Thursday lunch as for any appearance and, over the next hour, will give off a nonchalance toward her enduring success as if it’s something she’s barely aware of — versus, as we suspect, something she’s carefully cultivated years on end.
“I’m a person of influence. I think that’s a better way of putting it,” she says of the term “influencer.” “I think, again, we go back to trends and trendy terms, and I think when I started out it was ‘blogger,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I don’t blog. I have a website. We create content.’ So whenever someone’s using the trendy word or lazy terminology [that doesn’t] describe a person’s overall, I sort of find it a little amusing. They’re like, ‘Oh, influencer.’ And I’m like, ‘I’ve been doing this job before the meaning even arrived.’”
“I think what’s interesting about Olivia is she was an authority in the fashion space before the fashion influencer existed,” says Jeffrey Tousey, founder of social-first digital marketing agency Beekman Social. “And the thing about that is she has an uncanny ability to style anything and make it look timeless and sophisticated, but also can be daring and edgy. I think her secret sauce is that ability to curate her personal collection through a lens that’s relevant to what’s cool now, but also what will always be cool.”
The 37-year-old says she’s at the precipice of Olivia 3.0. First came TV, then modeling, ambassadorships, collaborations and consulting for brands. After that, it was time to create her own brand.
“I really enjoyed all of that very much but I really wanted to take a step back from it because I feel like I wear so many hats and I can do so much — I really just need to figure out what. 2.0, I think that was really about building the brand and looking at it from a full circle — and then COVID hit,” Palermo says, which led to her shutting down her namesake labels in fashion and beauty, as well as her website. “I was not upset about it because at the end of the day, I’m a true believer that everything does happen for a reason and you just have to really reflect on absolutely everything.”
Post-pandemic, she’s downsized, now employing just one jack-of-all-trades team member and handling her social posts herself (with the occasional help from her husband, Johannes Huebl, with Instagram Reels, which she finds tricky), and is in the midst of a general reset, looking ahead to her next chapter. Her approach could serve as a how-to for staying power in the industry: Develop an identity and stick to it and the brands will come.
“I think that having it be more of a corporate account, you lost that personality a little bit. It was a little bit too sterile, I felt. You can definitely tell the times where I’m really taking the time to post, because it’s probably more of funny emojis or little Japanese funny things that you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s definitely Olivia,’” she says.
“This is something that I think probably everyone deals with, but a brand wants you to say a certain thing, but you know the voice of your channel and you have to make it work. And if you decide to do what the client wants, they are going to have to understand that those numbers are going to go down, it’s not going to be successful, and then it only hurts you when those numbers are down. So we’re a big believer of, please listen to us or else there’s no point in doing this.”
Her latest is a women’s collection for Spanish retailer Scalpers. “The team has been incredible to work with. I think they’ve really learned a lot from us, which is great. I’m very reserved with the collections that I do now. I’ve done so many and it’s great. When I started out doing the collections, it hadn’t been done. And then it became overly saturated and then we pulled back,” she says. “I really feel like it’s about looking at brands that I want to work with, looking at where I am in my career and also their infrastructure: if they’re doing it for the first time, if they’ve done it before, what’s the why, do we need them?
“I completely pulled back after COVID,” she says. “I thought instead of just holding onto anything, let’s just start from scratch and reassess and just do a 3.0. Then mentally, you are feeling much lighter and you have a clear mindset. I don’t think anything I ever do is a failure. I think in life, you’re constantly learning and you’re growing. If something isn’t working, you’re like, ‘Why isn’t this working?’ To make sure that you don’t do that in the next round. But I think in a way, everything is a success because you take that and you just keep growing with it to make sure that you’re better in the next round, in the next round, the next round, and be able to share that knowledge with the people that you work with.”
Which is the sort of confidence and self-assuredness that comes from experience. While influencers today may become stressed if a collaboration doesn’t translate into numbers or engagement drops, Palermo trusts in herself to know the next thing is around the corner.
“No Negative Nancy over here,” she says. “You can’t sit there and overthink, you just have to keep moving forward and then it will come.”
As for what sets her apart from others in her field?
“I work really hard. I love what I do. I love my fashion community. I wake up every day and it motivates me,” she says. “My friends motivate me, seeing what they do motivates me. Our industry, the beauty that the designers bring, the energy that we see with marketing, with everything.”
And the field in general?
“I think I kind of stand in my own little world and there are people around me that I grew up with that are the same age, we grew up in the same industry, so for sure I see them and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we grew around the same time. That’s fine.’ But I don’t think I can think of a person,” she says. “I’m not shading, I’m not at all I promise. I literally just can’t. I’ve never been into comparison. I just do my own thing.”
That thing means that she can confidently say that she plans to one day build a billion-dollar business and it means that she’s earned the trust of the industry in a backstage way — again, atypical for most influencers.
“I do so much behind the scenes privately that no one sees and I would never publicly talk about it. There’s brands that have IPO’d that I’ve done the introduction emails for, that I’m just happy to help,” she says. “To me it’s normal. It’s just like you’re helping friends.”
She is aware of the fashion influencer culture en masse today, but pays little attention.
“I smile at it and I am like, ‘OK, I’m glad I created some sort of platform for everyone in the world to be able to have their own voice. I appreciate that,” she says. “You go do you.”