Have you been influenced today? If not, head over to WWD to read their interview in which they sit down with five of NYC's most influential trendsetting tastemakers—3 words that are used in the intro paragraph of this article alone—to discuss how influential, trendsetting and tastemaking these five people are. Does this sound a little crazy to anyone else? I'm not against the work of any of the people included in this roundtable (Vashtie, Ronnie Fieg, DJ Clark Kent, Jeff Staple and Bobbito Garcia), but the idea of talking to important people in an industry about their own importance in an industry seems like a massive waste of time and a major jerkoff sesh at worst and, at the very best, just fucking boring. Again, not to discredit any of the people in this interview, but can we just agree not do these sorts of chats in the future? Asking an influencer why they're an influencer is NOT like asking an NBA player how they made it to the league. Influencing is not a talent—it's an empty label given to someone who has a large social media following. Seems to me like if you've already gone ahead and called somebody an influencer, then that's all we really need to know.
