The Power Of Being 'Influenced', ft. a super cool jacket!

The other day, I was INFLUENCED. We hear this word all over the media, especially social media at the moment... but what does it really mean? Social media influencers are becoming a crucial part to brand marketing, especially for fashion and beauty brands. Influencers are people who share their opinions and thoughts on stuff on any platform, the most common ones are Instagram, YouTube or a blog. I would consider myself an influencer, as I’m a blogger and Instagrammer, and I do sometimes talk about brands and products I’m loving. But I hate the word ‘influence’ - ‘to have an effect on someone’. A lot of the time, having a voice or a platform is AMAZING and I love being able to have an effect on people, but other times I connote ‘influencing’ with pressuring. Do influencers, pressure us in to buying stuff? Make us feel like we NEED something that we don’t? As an influencer myself, I find these questions really interesting, particularly after I was influenced a couple of weeks ago.

I recently started watching Dance Moms and I became obsessed with some of the girls in it! I thought they were supa cool, so I went to follow them on Insta. My faves are Kalani, Mackenzie, Maddie and Brynn, and I think they’re all really cool and fun. If I’m being completely honest, I became slightly jealous of what appears to be a ‘perfect’ lifestyle - living in the sun, having loads of famous friends, so many fans, beautiful feeds, the best fashion and they’re literally all stunning! So when I saw this post on Kalani’s gram, I fell in love with the jacket and trousers, so I went straight to the comment section and did some digging to find the brand.... I AM GIA. I’d heard of this brand before, again via Insta, so I assumed it was a good brand, and I found a couple of bits on sale. I decided I really liked the reflective panelling and I wanted something like that for myself. Then I came back to the website a few days latwe and this jacket (the one she’s wearing in the pics), was half price. Without even properly thinking or researching the brand and what their quality, sizing, customs policy etc is like, I just went for it and bought it. I would never normally spend over £60 on something without doing that researched...... but I was influenced.

:
 

As an influencer myself, this is really really weird, as I actually get the behind the scenes, and I understand Kalani’s life won’t actually be ‘perfect’. I understand that, like me, she probably takes hundreds of pictures per shoot before picking one, and spends a while editing them. I understand that, like me, she isn’t always happy. I have breakdowns and arguments.... I’m not afraid to share that - but I don’t exactly reflect the negativity in my life through my feed, the same way I’m sure Kalani has bad days and mental breakdowns. And I’m sure most people (influencer or not) can recognise that, but I would expect me to understand that even more. That’s why I find the fact I still felt jealous of her and her feed weird........ I was influenced even though I know the realities of Insta!!

Anyway, this post isn’t just about influencing, it’s also about my jacket hehe!! With customs it totalled around £80 which is RIDICULOUS. If I could go back in time, would I decide not to buy it? Hmmm, maybe. It certainly is very expensive, and I maybe should have done some research before hand to find out how much customs would be. Howeverrrrrr, is it a badass jacket that I feel supa cool and edgy wearing? Yep! I just got back from a short break in Spain where I took loads of pics!! So here are my faves:



 



 

This doesn't show it great - but look at the reflective panelling!! It's so cool for parties and festivals.

 

 

So those are the pics of my jacket!! Follow my Insta: instagram.com/whatlexieloves to see other pictures from my holiday in Spain which I'll be posting over the next couple of weeks.

Are you an influencer? Have you ever been influenced? What do you think about the word ‘influence’?

Lex xxx