Best Fashion Designer Personal Instagrams to Follow

The day when designers sat in design studios focused solely on the next collection has come to pass. In its place is the time of ‘and’ where designers create with cloth and digital narrative. That narrative fills a demand from fans looking to peek behind the scenes into the thinking of fashion creatives from building the collection to the designer’s inspiration to personal moments.

The demand creates a quandary for designers regarding just how much of their personal life they reveal as well as if their lives, and the lives of the brands they design for, are separate, or one-in-the-same. Designers with labels they founded such as Emily Bode of Bode and Cate Holstein of Khaite, answer the need with an instagram account both for the brand and for themselves. One to promote a product based narrative and the other to reveal a more personal side to themselves as we are all more than the work we do. Thom Browne recently started his own private account several weeks ago after staying out of the fray while growing his namesake label.

And while many may design exclusively for their namesake labels, a number of leading creatives operate out of major design houses like Dior, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Balmain and others. The role comes with the quandary of how to navigate the digital age. Should they simply remain behind the label they design for or in the age of musical chairs of leading designer roles, should they build their own relationship with an audience to assure longer term job security. By example, Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Women’s Artistic Creative Director at Dior, has her own Instagram but with only 5 posts, while Dior Men’s Artistic Creative Director, Kim Jones, has over 5,000. Each has chosen how to navigate their personal narrative in a way they are comfortable with.

Balmain’s designer, Olivier Rousteing, has over 5.6 million followers to the house’s 10.4 million. Rousteing is just 33 and began designing for Balmain just 10 years ago while the label itself is 75 years old. The math lens in Rousteing’s favor, while the same can be said for Jeremy Scott and his 2.2 million followers to Moschino’s 9 million. Perhaps a lesson for the houses from their own creative directors should be noted. As Olivier’s love for the collection and for fashion is infectious.

We wanted to share a few of the fashion designer’s personal Instagram accounts as we felt they are worth keeping one’s eye on for various reasons, from smiling each day with Marc Jacobs, seeing where Francesco Risso is going to take us today, to wishing we all had the curated eye of Josep Font. Here are the Best Fashion Designer’s Personal Instagrams of 2019.