Last month, on a bright morning in Chinatown, New York, Vogue photographer Michael O'Neal stood in the middle of the street with his phone outstretched. He needed to reframe the shot so he could see the detail on his model's Calvin Klein pumps. And then, with the sharp-fingered care of an artist, he pressed his screen and hashtagged it on Instagram. September's #VogueInstaFashion series, using only an iPhone, was the first high fashion shoot on the photo-sharing app and the latest commercial nod to Instagram's place in the industry. As a tool, a gallery, a community and a muse. And as the most important thing to happen to fashion this year.
This season I followed London fashion week through 612-pixel squares. From the 205 bus, I studied the Christopher Kane show, his slippery gowns and spray-painted dresses detailed on the Instagram stream of style blogger Susie Bubble. Two hundred miles away from Paris, in bed with a book, I admired the splashy colours of Celine's spring/summer collection through the front-row feed of Vogue fashion editor Francesca Burns, seconds after the m odels had passed her.
There is emotional sincerity in a photo taken fast. With Instagram I choose my editors. I choose the people on the ground with eyes I admire and it's this, their cut – their single photo of one key look that will sum up a collection for their followers.
In the two months after launching in October 2010 (two years before Facebook bought it for $1bn), Instagram had amassed a million registered users. Today, it has more 150 times that, a proportion of whom (including Isabel Marant, with 58,000 followers, and Cara Delevingne, with more than 2.5 million) make up the fashion elite. Maureen Mullen of L2, the digital thinktank, reports that Instagram registers 25 times higher engagement than any other social platform. She explains how fashion dominates the app. Oscar de la Renta debuted his new campaign advertorial to his PR's 229,000 Instagram followers, weeks before it ran in Vogue or Elle's September issues, but, despite not having an account, it's Chanel which wins in hashtag mentions. Its Paris show was "a playground for the Instagram generation", with bloggers lining up to take selfies beside a huge Chanel robot and quilted sumo wrestler. Much of Instagram's success in this fast-moving visual industry, explains Mullen, is because it is "mobile-native". It lives in our pocket.
This year, style blogger Susie Lau started noticing images from her Instagram pinned up as inspiration on designers' mood boards. She wasn't surprised. She started Style Bubble in 2006 to publish her fashion photos, but since Instagram launched, her followers no longer have to visit her blog to see the pictures. The photos come to them. "For an industry that has a very short attention span and undergoes changes every day," she says, "it's perfect for capturing people's attention for a split second."
Derek Blasberg launches a stationery line with Alexa Chung. Photograph: @derekblasberg "Instagram is a barometer of opinion. It's a visual diary. It's escapism," agrees Francesca Burns, whose Instagram feed is a ribbon of patterns and hilarity, along with images of her favourite pieces by young British designers, or, say, a puppy in a hat. "It connects you to the industry, to your friends, to strangers ... I love it."
When we speak, Burns is in Paris between shows, uploading catwalk pictures every two hours into the swell of the 55 million photos Instagram exhibits every day. She is not alone – rather than sketching the looks, the front row is taking photos. Instagram, for the first time this year, is so ubiquitous that it's become the fifth fashion city. Which means that those posting pictures are still learning.
"Everyone gets annoyed when you have to crane your neck past someone taking a phone photo in front of you," Burns says, " but we all do it. I think we are all adjusting and learning." Fashion editors are now the photographers, as well as reporters. As well as (in the case of Harper's Bazaar's Derek Blasberg) celebrities, pouting alongside supermodels in high glamour situations. "Technology is evolving so fast," adds Burns, "we're all just figuring it out as we go along."
Victoria Beckham poses in ‘dressing gown and Manolo’s in Vegas’. Photograph: @victoriabeckham Inside our phones we are curating moodboards for the way we'd like to live. An archive of images that are funny, odd, interesting or inspiring. Are we all becoming fashion editors? Stylists of our own micro-magazines? Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom agrees that social media has democratised fashion. "It's no longer one person picking exactly what goes on what page," he points out. "All of us can participate." On Instagram, he says, "Up-and-coming designers are finding a platform to get their looks out into the world. We never really set out to create a platform for commerce, but in some ways Instagram is becoming that platform for folks in fashion."
Last month Systrom was given a front-row seat at his first fashion show, Burberry, one of the top 10 fashion brands on Instagram with more than a million followers. There's a picture of him sitting next to Alexa Chung while Cara Delevingne struts past in dusky, bubblegum pink. While Chung and Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman are looking to the right, Systrom is gazing off to the left. He's watching the people Instagramming the show. "There was a big tripod with a tiny iPhone on the top," he said later at the National Portrait Gallery, where blown-up Instagram pictures were hanging like old masters. "I walked over and there was a celebrity sitting next to the camera. I took out my phone. They thought I was coming over to take a picture of them but I took a picture of that iPhone. It was one of the most interesting things I'd ever seen… Social media and our devices are changing fashion."
And it's changing fashion not just in ways that are instantly quantifiable – in follower numbers or clicks – but in ways that are ambiguous and sly. See, for example, Cara Delevingne's bubblegum-pink suit. Kay Barron, fashion features director at Net-a-Porter, says she looked up at the Burberry catwalk and was struck by the familiarity of the colours. "When I saw all the faded pastels, and Burberry's spring/summer 14 palette," she recalls, "I was reminded of Instagram."
Pink is the colour of the season. Simone Rocha's runway was a stream of pink dresses, coats and brogues. Mulberry, Miu Miu, Celine, Jonathan Saunders – all their autumn collections were soaked in the same rosy, milkshake tones. These are tones reminiscent of the filters Instagram has become famous for, filters that saturate your photos with nostalgia for a pre-digital age, when the light was more flattering and everything appeared Vaseline-smudged. This season the Instagram palette has spilled on to the catwalk, drenching everything in a Californian summer. Instagram is training our eyes.
This is how we see fashion now – on palm-sized screens, double-clicking with thumbs. We see the details on couture gowns the second they're presented, the shoe of the season before the season even starts. Fashion today is designed to be seen on screen – colours that will pop, make you pause. Accessories that look unusual and kitsch enough to be regrammed across phones, cities, countries. Instagram has refocused our gaze. And tinted it rose.
1. Cara Delevingne
The 21-year-old English model has more than 2.5 million followers on Instagram.
Chung, on the cover of this month's Vogue, has month 500,000 followers.
British singer-songwriter's Instagram page has almost 1.5 million followers.
The writer and blogger showcases her favourite designer outfits.
Naomi Campbell shows off her latest adventures and fashion shoots to her 240,000 followers.
The model's Instagram page has more than 280,000 followers.
Burberry's page has just passed a million followers.
The women's fashion designer has 80,000 followers.
The Welsh fashion designer has almost 6,000 followers.
10. Paul Smith
The designer's page has 75,000-plus followers.
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