For our March 2018 Fashion Issue, we spoke with three of our country’s top fashion influencers, held in high regard due to their impeccable styles and the impact that fuels their growing following. In the last installment of the three-part cover story, Kim Jones recalls her past inspirations and envisions her future
The term ‘influencer’ has been tossed around on and off the web for quite some time now. Many internet personalities with a growing following develop an affinity with this buzzword, tacking it onto their social media accounts and mixing it in with the rest of their biography in the ‘About Me’ tabs of their websites. The online Cambridge Dictionary defines an influencer as someone who affects or changes the way people behave. This annoints the term a little more gravitas than we normally associate it with, given how casually it is bandied about. Heart Evangelista-Escudero, Kim Jones, and Liz Uy, who have been on the radar well before the advent of social media, are influencers in every sense of the word, especially in the fashion sphere. We flock to their Instagram accounts, eager to know who they are wearing, where they are travelling to, and what their next projects might be. Yet these women are more than what they wear; they are representative of years of hard work, a drive to put one’s self out there, and a vision that continues to resonate with a wide audience.
Miss Jones
In search of a space she could call her own, Kim Jones joined the blogosphere anonymously. Back then, it was more of a personal project than anything else; she would upload a collection of virtual keepsakes such as photographs, artworks, music, and poems to her website, which became a sort of home for anything and everything that left a lasting impression on her. It was only in January of 2011 that she decided to put a name and face to her blog. Her growing follower count was a pleasant surprise, but it was—and still is—more vital to Jones that her message of connecting to readers through and beyond fashion would come across.
“There is always a story to tell, and photography and styling to go with it,” she says of her work. “Though travel and fashion are common threads in my posts, I don’t really churn out content that is simply about a specific trip or an outfit of the day; rather, I see them as conduits to help create compelling, substantial content I feel readers might enjoy.”
Jones has always been creative. When she was younger, she would change up her clothes in small ways—a shorter hem here, a new button there—to make them more unique. Her learning tools were films and books, most of which helped shape how she saw the world. “Books like Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee had a real impact on my view of women,” she shares. “As a young girl back then, the characters in these stories were very inspiring.”