Fashion, Lifestyle

Influencer Fashion: Are They Really Designers?

0 346

By Thalia Carr


With the rise in popularity of reality shows such as Love Island and Ex on the Beach, ‘Social Media Influencer’ has become a genuine job title, where we are being bombarded with influencer edits from multiple fast fashion brands.

Pretty Little Thing collaborate with influencers regularly and are notorious for snapping up the Love Island stars as soon as they leave the villa. The latest Love Island star collaboration the brand have released claims to be styled and designed by Molly-Mae Hague, runner up in the fifth season of the show, however fans noticed that a lot of the items in the collection were already on the Pretty Little Thing website months ago.

One shopper commented: “They’ve just slapped her name on stuff already on the site”, while another branded the collab “so disappointing”.

This leads us to question, can anyone call themselves a designer these days? The fashion industry is infamous for being cut-throat and tough to break and it is more than common for designers to spend years trying to get their big break. So why, only a month after leaving the Love Island villa, has Molly-Mae been given the label ‘designer’ for this collaboration?

Her 3.4 million Instagram followers are well aware that she has a great personal style and a real eye for mixing high end brands with high street brands. In the edit, you can see that both her and the styling team have worked hard on expressing her style throughout the shoot.

Like a lot of other fast fashion brands, Pretty Little Thing don’t name the designers of specific garments, so we’re still left with the question: who are the real designers?

About the author / 

Thalia Carr

Fashion Co-editor at aAh! Magazine

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More News Stories:

  • Manchester Psych Fest 2026 review – dreamscapes, secret sets and unrestrained energy

    Featured image and gallery: Lucy Elson-Whittaker It’s that time of year again: Manchester Psych Fest returns with one of its toughest line-ups yet, forcing festivalgoers to make some difficult choices about where to spend their day. With so much packed across the city, sacrifices are inevitable. Racing across Manchester, we catch four standout sets spanning…

  • Leeds Festival 2026: Saturday review – Rain, riffs and raves

    Featured image: Henry Redcliffe Not to be outshined by the artists performing today, the rain makes its inevitable return to the skies of Yorkshire over Leeds Festival. With the downpours hardly taking a break, Saturday is the day for the indie-heads and brats, as two of the most anticipated acts of the weekend take the…

  • Leeds Festival 2026: Friday review – Sunshine, singalongs, and a special birthday bash

    Featured image: Georgina Hurdsfield Despite the dreary weather forecast, it seems the explosive noise of the night before has blown away the expected torrential rain, as the sun fights through the clouds to shine over Leeds Festival on Friday. With the opening of the ‘other’ stages, the first double headliner, and a very special birthday,…