At 10, Taylen Biggs has nearly 1.5 million followers on social media thanks to her interviews with fashion and entertainment celebrities, an activity that bothers some and carries risks but which she says she “loves.”
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Dressed from head to toe in designer clothes and large sunglasses, the young American gets out of the van that is taking her to a Fashion Week show in Paris and declares with conviction: “I love fashion and I like meeting new people ‘.”
A cameraman follows her everywhere and her father Josh Biggs, whom she introduces as her “bodyguard,” watches discreetly in the background.
In recent years, the fashion world has undergone profound changes under the leadership of these now indispensable influencers. Ever younger and more numerous, they can provide a real boost in sales.
In addition, designers are not mistaken and no longer hesitate to grant them privileged access, even if it means abandoning traditional media.
AFP
But this opaque world between advertising and self-promotion carries risks. In 2018, actor and Instagrammer Luka Sabbat was sued by a PR firm in the US for not publishing enough photos of sunglasses.
“We might find it amusing, cute […] I find it disturbing to see a child adopting the codes, gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice of adults,” French child psychologist Claire Dahan added to AFP.
Taylen Biggs has almost a million followers on TikTok and almost 380,000 on Instagram. Thanks to her short interviews and Shirley Temple-style poses, she is a familiar face at New York or Miami Fashion Week.
AFP
The same process every time: getting sponsors, getting access to fashion shows and getting in touch with celebrities. “That’s how it works,” his 43-year-old father whispers to AFP, adding that he works with “different brands.”
Her mother, Angelica Calad, is a Colombian who came to the United States when she was 13. With her passion for fashion, she started posing on social networks with her baby who was a few months old.
Taylen’s smiling, chubby face caught the attention of advertisers, and at age 1 1/2, she posed for a children’s clothing line, Josh said.
Getty Images via AFP
It is the mother who manages her daughter’s social networks from Miami. She is also the one who teaches Taylen and her two little brothers. “We take school very seriously, it is priority number 1,” assures the father.
The girl started homeschooling in Miami a month before school started so she could take a long break during fashion weeks in Milan and Paris, he says.
“The truth is that I am not a big fan of the school system, whether public or private. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about homeschooling.
AFP
When asked if her daughter is a business, Josh calmly replies: “People see her through the prism of photos, but in real life she is first and foremost a child.”
However, Taylen, who proudly points out that he has “participated in fifteen fashion seasons,” sometimes gives the impression that he has forgotten it. “I love children,” she says, for example. “I have a lot of friends. They are so proud of what I do. I don’t feel any different.
What if one day she got tired of the catwalks? “We are about to leave the fashion world. Without hesitation,” his father promises.