Kylie Jenner’s Instagram Propels Black-Owned Fashion Label

(Bloomberg) -- If Kylie Jenner can eradicate more than $1 billion from Snap Inc.’s market in one tweet about her lack of interest in the platform, then surely the mega-celebrity’s promotion of a Black-owned fashion label over multiple social media posts can have the opposite effect.

Such was the experience of Jedidiah Duyile, a London-born designer of Nigerian and Ghanaian descent, who saw her collection at Loudbrand Studios sell out after two posts from Jenner racked up more than 13 million “likes” on Instagram.

“It’s great when you already believe in what you do, but it’s really nice for the world to see it,” Duyile said in a Zoom interview with Bloomberg News.

While possibly a string of casual posts for Jenner, the tout to her nearly 200 million followers nonetheless supports trends associated with calls to “Buy Black” following global protests against police brutality and racism toward Black people. The notion is seen as a remedy to systemic and economic inequalities faced by Black entrepreneurs and business owners.

“That outpouring of support and massive sense of community,” Duyile says, “it’s so amazing.” And though Jenner may be relegated as being removed from social issues, Duyile believes “her even posting it was her way of showing support” for Black-owned businesses, particularly for someone who presumably gets tons of requests to wear designs for free.

Loudbrand’s “raw edge vashtie dress” retails at approximately $145 and is currently sold out along with the brand’s entire collection after catching Jenner’s attention. According to a survey of 2,200 U.S. adults conducted June 26-28 by Bloomberg News and Morning Consult, 61% of Americans said they never buy based on influencers. But with a social media star as big as Jenner among generation Z and millennials, odds can change.

Duyile, an unexpected recipient of support to purchase Black-owned brands, is postponing a release of new designs and now planning for a small restock with hopes of continuing “to push the standard of beauty” for consumers who resemble her, she said. Particularly because “as a young Black girl, we’ve all gone through our chain of insecurities about what the standard of beauty is,” she added.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.