The age of the influencer is truly upon us
The Shameless, many on social media instantly got busy trying to find their three degrees of separation from her. When Payal Kapadia followed in Sengupta’s wake with her own Grand Prix award, even the Prime Minister found time in the middle of an election campaign to congratulate her. What was palpable was not just India’s pride at these achievements but also India’s relief.
Until this point, India’s Cannes moment had largely been about Nancy Tyagi. For those who don’t know (and until recently I was one of them), Nancy Tyagi is a fashion influencer. She was part of the Brut India squad of digital influencers at Cannes—Brut being an official media partner of the festival—and walked the red carpet in her own DIY outfits.
Like a pink wedding cake of a gown that she said took “30 days, 1,000 metres of fabric and weighs over 20kg." Soon the internet was filled with “Who is Nancy Tyagi?" articles. In some ways Tyagi is the Cinderella-style story the media loves—the plucky dreamer and self-taught seamstress from Baranwa village in Uttar Pradesh who became famous by reimagining the outfits that stars like Deepika Padukone or Alia Bhatt wore. But while those have designer labels and teams of tailors behind them, Tyagi is a one-woman-show, shopping in the wholesale fabric market, stitching and snipping her way to Instagram fame with her “Outfits from Scratch".
She had chutzpah, talent and wasn’t embarrassed about speaking Hindi on the red carpet. And her 1.3 million followers on Instagram prove that her fans love her for it. Of course the “I made it to Cannes" posts of many influencers are a little disingenuous.
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