Examining 20 Years of Fashion’s Influencer Economy

What began as scrappy self-publishing has become a finely tuned industry machine. Influencing is now big business. Four of the industry’s most influential creators came together at BoF VOICES 2025 to take a hard look at what influencing has become — and where it should go in the future. Susanna Lau opens the conversation by ditching the earnest tropes and asking a harder question: how can creators keep their integrity as agencies, briefs and budgets multiply? Bryan Yambao reflects on the pre-iPhone “wild west” — scanning magazines, posting affiliate links from his bedroom in Manila, and the shoc...