When Laura, a 30-year-old fashion stylist, was invited to her best friend’s bash at a vineyard on Long Island, she knew the party could be Instagram gold.
The first step — narrowing down her outfit to two potentials that she found online.
The second? Superimposing those images onto a photo of the winery, “so I could see which look would work better among the grapes,” she explains.
You are your Instagram. So you better look good.
- Laura
Laura, who asked that her real name not be used for work reasons, then downloaded the app PicCollage to test how each outfit-vineyard combination would complement her colorful feed.
“It’s important to have a strong Instagram presence,” says Laura, who’s spent hours coordinating her outfits with everything from plants to gallery paintings.
She’s not alone in her obsession. More and more NYC women are doing everything they can to get glam for the ’gram.
For some, like Laura or Nicole Najafi, a well-edited Instagram feed is intertwined with career success.
Najafi, who owns the online jeans company Industry Standard, pays extra attention to her shoe-and-jeans pairings, “just in case I take a ‘from-the-top’ Insta,” says the designer, whose account, @industrystandardny, boasts over 2,500 followers.
Not even floors are safe from her discerning eye. “If I’m going to a cafe where there are really good tiles…I think about how the floors look and what shoes would go with them and what jeans look good with them,” admits the 27-year-old, who regularly consults a list of the best-tiled floors in NYC. Lafayette Grand Café is one of her go-tos.
“If someone says we can go here or here and I know one [of the places] has good tile, the answer is obvious,” she says.
For others, though, Insta-glamming is a more peer-pressure-induced pastime.
Sarah Uibel (@sarahdiem), lifestyle director at LFB Media Group, has one friend who is so heavy-handed with the ’gram that she has taken to slapping on bright red lipstick and extra eyeliner any time she gets together with the pal, in the unfortunate event that she gets Instattacked.
“You have those friends who say, ‘Oh, I look so terrible today’ and then they show up looking perfect. And I’m like, ‘Oh, I really just came straight from Pilates,’” she says. “They’re like, ‘Oh, let’s take a spontaneous photo,’ and I’m just like, ‘Um…why don’t you just stick to taking photos of the food?’ ” (Of course, Uibel, who has close to 600 followers, puts in a little added effort any time she’s manning the iPhone camera.)
Makeup and hair businesses are benefiting from the quest to look picture-perfect at all times.
https://instagram.com/p/y5SOcNH9FH/?taken-by=sarahdiem
Giovanni Vaccaro, creative director of Glamsquad, an on-demand beauty service, says even all-girl nights in — once reserved for bare faces and sweats — are becoming heavily made-up Instagram opportunities. So much so that ladies are shelling out for professional hair and makeup.
“We had our busiest Sunday because women [were] having Grammy parties with their friends,” says Vaccaro. “Years ago they wouldn’t have gotten their hair and makeup done professionally, but they are now, because they know they’re going to be Instagramming photos of themselves.”
After all, if you didn’t Instagram your Grammy gathering, did it even happen?
Not really, says Laura.
“You are your Instagram,” she proclaims. “So you better look good.”