It’s not often we see a fashion blog that doesn’t credit the same photographer time and time again, and more often than not, that photographer is the boyfriend. For Chiara Ferragni of The Blonde Salad, dating those with a photography knack has become a bit of a pattern. She shifted from Riccardo Pozzoli, her boyfriend, photographer and manager of over six years, to cosy up with another cameraman, Andrew Arthur. Interestingly, the fashionista mentioned via social media post-breakup that, “Ricky and I are not in a relationship anymore but we will still work together.”
Even top blogger Rumi Neely teamed up with her now ex-boyfriend/budding photographer Colin Sokol to form Fashiontoast, right after he caught her back in 2007 taking selfies by a garage door. Post-breakup, Sokol took to Twitter, asking, “Does a rain drop ever return to the cloud it was created in?” Oh boy, looks like Neely was too far gone. Luckily for her, she doesn’t really need him anymore, since the Fashiontoast empire has already been built. Besides, her recent beau, Christopher Dowson, seems happy enough to lug around a camera for her, too.
This isn’t to say the boys don’t benefit just as much as the girls in front of the camera. Take Nicole Warne from Gary Pepper. I’d say her boyfriend of over seven years, Luke Shadbolt, is effectively building his own name and personal brand along this ride, and rightly so. Although his over 58,000 Instagram followers hardly compare to her ever-growing followers, we can only assume that a little internal advertising is going on. It’s not unusual for relationships to be promoted all over social media, but if the better half of her photos are tagged with him in it, well, you do the math.
And while these snap-happy boys never go unrecognised, it’s also very clear that they don’t just inspire their girlfriends, they also provide the legs to make their fashion blogger dreams a reality. As Warne has explained on her blog, “This is the boy behind the lens, the one who helps make my blog what it is and the reason I found the confidence to take a chance and start Gary Pepper in the first place.”
It warms the readers little hearts to know that these phenomenally-dressed fashion guns are just like them, boyfriends and all. And for the most part, it’s a win-win situation for all parties. The boyfriends get free advertising, attend all the glamorous parties and along the way even become a little famous. Best of all, they make some serious coin.
Ally Carey of Substance Blog and her fiance-photographer, Jonathan Hayward, have cleverly combined their skills to not just create a fashion blog, but become a business duo with a firm foot in the fashion industry. When you’ve got a photographer and a stylist/model on offer, you may as well get the package deal. “Brands are loving working with Jonathan and I as a collective as we offer an array of skills,” Carey tells us. The pair has already teamed up to put together campaigns for Charlie Brown and the Whitehouse Institute of Design, and recently Hayward jumped out of his comfort zone and in front of the camera alongside Ally for the Billie Shoes #solemates campaign.
Make your assumptions as you will, but the pairing up of photographers and bloggers makes for a seriously unstoppable, seriously attractive team. Choose your mutually-beneficial relationship wisely because a cliché is taking shape — and it’s all on camera.
