MILAN — Chiara Ferragni is all grown up — and her evolution from a blogger into an entrepreneur and chief executive officer of her company has taken place under the gaze of a growing cluster of Instagram followers that now total 26.3 million.
Ferragni’s popularity, however, extends beyond social media, as she has been fronting advertising campaigns and creating capsule collections for brands ranging from Pantene to Oreo. Her influence has expanded beyond the confines of fashion as her posts at the Uffizi Museum in Florence or Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera have succeeded in driving a sharp increase in visitors to those sites in a matter of days. Her ability to speak to the younger generations caught the attention of luxury titan Diego Della Valle, who last April asked Ferragni to join the Tod’s Group board, believing she would be valuable in helping to build solidarity projects — a move that led to Tod’s shares spiking on the Italian Stock Exchange.
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Former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called on Ferragni and her husband, singer Fedez, to invite younger generations to respect the rules and wear sanitary masks during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the couple, known as the “Ferragnez,” received the prestigious annual Ambrogino d’Oro award, bestowed to express gratitude for the contribution they gave to Milan during the pandemic and in recognition of the charity initiatives they promoted throughout that year, starting from their personal donation of 100,000 euros to create new hospital beds. Inviting their followers to also do their part helped to raise almost 4.5 million euros.
“Maybe not everyone understands me or likes me, but I’ve seen a growing respect in the face of tangible results,” Ferragni said of a job that she’s created out of thin air, which she defined as “a small empire that even haters cannot contest.” Laughing, she added: “Still, most people, 95 percent of people, don’t really understand what I do and I think 99 percent of people don’t know how much work there is behind this job.”
No matter, Ferragni has increasingly found her voice, realizing that her influence can help smaller brands as much as established ones, and she has been supporting a number of causes that are dear to her and that reflect her values.
On Valentine’s Day, she launched the #LoveFiercely campaign to support CIG Arcigay Milano, celebrating egalitarian love with three couples who are part of the LGBTQ community, making a donation to help educate students and combat gender stereotypes and bullying. “Through the experience of three couples I admire, I wanted to share what it means for me to love freely and proudly, without influences, judgments and labels,” Ferragni said.
As a brand ambassador for Kering-owned jewelry brand Pomellato, she has helped raise awareness of domestic abuse — which surged throughout the lockdowns — and with Pantene last year she launched the “Strong Together” initiative to support women’s start-ups with a contribution of 75,000 euros, also raising the issue of gender disparity and inclusion in the working world.
“I want to fight to help give women an entirely different role in society and show this in my own life, as an entrepreneur, as a CEO and at the same time as a mother and a wife. We should not settle, we can do anything,” said Ferragni, who added that, while it’s important to bring attention to specific issues, she believes in concretely following up with the injection of funds.
Ferragni has also spoken up about mental health in her Instagram stories and about being in therapy for years. She included the concept of couples’ therapy in “The Ferragnez” eight-episode series on Amazon Prime Video, which centered on her and her husband’s daily life and debuted in 240 countries in December. (Ferragni two years ago was also a judge on “Making the Cut” on that streaming platform.)
While couples’ therapy “is a simple concept in theory, there’s still a stigma about it, either that it doesn’t work or that it’s necessary only when things are really serious,” related Ferragni. “But it’s not true, it’s something we should all do, and we should all take care of our mental health as much as our physical health.”
Wearing a total look by her namesake brand — a black leather biker jacket over a pair of jeans embellished with black stars — Ferragni met with WWD at her existing headquarters in Milan but also posed for photos in the sprawling space that is being renovated to house the company’s offices beginning in the second half of the year.
The new location reflects Ferragni’s growing business — and one that she plans to expand even more internationally, having given a mandate to BNP Paribas to help her find an investor in her Fenice Srl company, as reported.
Ferragni is the founder and CEO of the company, which closed 2021 with sales of 4.6 million euros, threefold growth compared with 2020.
Her namesake collection has grown to comprise different categories, including ready-to-wear, accessories and footwear; a children’s line; eyewear; innerwear and beachwear; jewelry; stationery, and children’s products. Ferragni revealed that she also has signed a license with Angelini Beauty to launch her first line of fragrances. The first scent is expected to bow next year. Her makeup line was launched last November, produced by Intercos.
At the same time, she is president and CEO of TBS Crew, the company she founded in 2009 that manages her The Blonde Salad blog and activities. That company closed 2021 with sales of 6.8 million euros, climbing 42 percent on the previous year.
She knows people looking at her social media photos may not realize what all this involves. “There is a huge amount of coordination, it’s a full-time job but I could never do it on my own, there’s Fabio Maria Damato, my right-hand man, and a team of around 45 people between The Blonde Salad and my brand. We plan trips together, campaigns, negotiate deals. They are people I trust, that understand what I want to do and are in sync with me. Many have been working with me for years and know what I want to do,” she said.
Ferragni talks a mile a minute, and one can sense determination and ambition in her words — and she has a system. “I’ve always written down my goals maniacally. I write notes on my iPhone, by month and by year, all I want to do both personally and for work, and then I enjoy going back to the list years after and seeing that many objectives have been reached and surpassed — many that I thought were not even possible to reach.”
These goals include building her brand to comprise different categories, seeing it expand solidly and working with the luxury labels she admired growing up and, in some cases, even becoming their ambassador. “Most of all, it gives me great pleasure to know I created a new kind of job for myself, one that did not exist before, and that I trusted my instinct in becoming a sort of pioneer. Each day is different from the previous one and I can decide what to focus on, and in certain cases even make the difference on specific issues. I like to know that I can have this power.”
Social media, she believes, has also helped dismantle the classic codes of beauty, making way for body inclusivity. “Each one of us has something to show the world, but when I was growing up, this was not a mainstream concept. It was easy to feel less than people in show business and in fashion.” In time, she’s become more self-confident and does not worry about posting images of herself if she’s not in top form — sharing photos without makeup when she contracted COVID-19, for example.
Ferragni’s influence did not wane during the lockdown, but on the contrary only increased. “After the initial fears connected to the pandemic, I wondered if my followers would be bored since I couldn’t post about my business trips or special events, but I realized that they were interested in me and my daily life. The more natural I was, the more I was appreciated. My life has always been an open book and in that moment, we were all in the same boat, we felt close to one another and it was good to share, and possibly bring some joy.”
She said she personally manages her Instagram account. “I see the difference if you do it yourself or not, and it does not make sense if you delegate. It’s a window on what you want to show of your life and the way you think — someone else might not think the same way as you do.”
Ferragni started her career by posting on a Milanese social media platform called 2.0 as a teenager and then on the American site Flicker. “It was very important for me to reach out to a wider and international public, outside of my friends and family. I always read the comments and there were moments I was full of haters, especially on Flicker — there were people who did not understand what I was doing. This was a site used by photographers, who would post images of animals, sunsets and landscapes, and I used it as a personal diary. For some, I was contaminating the platform. I didn’t really see how it all could evolve for me, but I saw the potential in what I was doing because of the number of comments I was receiving, people interested in what I was doing, asking where I went to dinner, whose shoes I was wearing and so on.”
She admitted she was hurt early on because she couldn’t understand why so many people would criticize her when she was “just following my passion. I was still unsure, but in the end, I followed my instinct and my own path. Now I am rarely hurt by comments. I try to understand the constructive critiques, those are important to improve.”
In October 2009, Ferragni created The Blonde Salad, “my home, my own blog, where I could show my daily life and my looks.” It was the right moment, she believes, as style bloggers were starting to emerge and in February the following year, she received the first invitations to fashion shows and the first job offers. While exciting, she admitted she was also anxious to avoid being “a passing meteor,” and worked to understand how her “lifelong passion could evolve into a real long-lasting job.” She started to create a team and she believes that diversifying her business was also key to her success.
Ferragni takes pride in growing The Blonde Salad as a talent agency, citing her sister Valentina Ferragni building a solid jewelry business, and her favorite make up artist Manuele Mameli becoming a “glam TV personality in his own right.”
Ferragni grew up photographed and filmed by her mother, Marina Di Guardo, although those were private family memories. “I always liked the way she told our story and unconsciously I was inspired by this. This is what I do with my children, too. I do it for myself but with a public of millions of people and sometimes I don’t even realize it. I do it to share a positive message of a modern family, of love, and I think it can be inspirational for people who follow me — or at least entertaining.”
Ferragni attributed her passion for fashion to her mother, who worked for Blumarine and “was always well dressed and had the right accessories. I saw her as a top model in our provincial reality.” Her own friendship with the likes of Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri has been extensively documented, but Ferragni said she often also likes to wear new brands to help emerging designers.
With two toddlers at home, Ferragni is now trying to balance her private life and her work’s demands. “Sometimes I go away on a business trip and my children follow me later, but I want to dedicate my time and my attention to them as I do to my work. I need to be focused on my activities and concentrate work in the right amount of days.”