Singapore’s Influencer economy grew out of small blogshops selling imported clothes

Evidence

As this local economy grew and prominent blogshop models, owners, and owner-models accumulated extensive fame and a loyal following, the more established blogshops began importing new clothing from regional fashion manufacturers such as Bangkok, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou for their growing clientele. Eventually, the most successful of these blogshops branched off into full-fledged online fashion stores, manufacturing their own labels and exclusive designs, while maintaining their disclosive personal diary narratives on blogs and new social media platforms. By the mid-2010s, several of these blogshops-turned-fashion retailers expanded into brick-and-mortar shops by first renting racks at aggregate fashion stores, running pop-up shops, renting large warehouses to double up as office spaces and fashion stores, and later leasing dedicated storefronts for their fashion lines. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 220

Categorization

• XREF: Traces the blogshop-to-fashion-retailer arc that parallels the ‘grafting & growth’ and platform-economy literature on how informal digital commerce professionalizes. — connects to: Singapore’s Influencer culture grew out of 2000s blogshop commerce. — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 218; Singapore Influencer culture grew from mid-2000s blogshop self-modeling — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 218

Broader Connections

• Singapore Influencer culture grew from mid-2000s blogshop self-modeling #corroborates (0.90) — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 218