(Paris) At 10 years old, Taylen Biggs has nearly 1.5 million subscribers on social networks thanks to her interviews with fashion and entertainment celebrities, an activity that disturbs some and involves risks, but which she says “to adore”.
Dressed from head to toe in designer clothes and big sunglasses, the young American gets out of the van that is taking her to a Fashion Week show in Paris and declares with conviction: “I love fashion and I ‘loves meeting new people’.
A cameraman follows her everywhere and her father, Josh Biggs, whom she presents as her “bodyguard”, watches discreetly in the background.
In recent years, the world of fashion has profoundly changed under the leadership of these influencers who have become essential. Increasingly younger and more and more numerous, they can give a real boost to sales.
Moreover, designers are not mistaken and no longer hesitate to give them privileged access, even if it means doing without traditional media.
But this opaque world between advertising and self-promotion carries risks. In 2018, actor and Instagrammer Luka Sabbat was sued by a public relations firm in the United States because he wasn’t posting enough photos of sunglasses.
“Adult Codes”
“We might find it amusing, cute […] I find it something disturbing to see a child who adopts adult codes, gestures, facial expressions, a tone of voice,” adds French child psychologist Claire Dahan to AFP.
Taylen Biggs has nearly a million followers on TikTok and nearly 380,000 on Instagram. She is a familiar face at New York or Miami Fashion Week thanks to her short interviews and Shirley Temple-style poses.
Each time, the same process: obtaining sponsors, accessing fashion shows and rubbing shoulders with celebrities. “That’s how it works,” whispers his father, aged 43, to AFP. Before adding working with “different brands”.
PHOTO ANGELA WEISS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Taylen Biggs at the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2018
Her mother, Angelica Calad, is a Colombian who came to the United States when she was 13. Passionate about fashion, she started posing with her baby, a few months old, on social networks.
Taylen’s laughing, plump face caught the attention of advertisers, and at the age of a year and a half, she posed for a children’s clothing line, Josh said.
“I love children”
It’s the mother who manages her daughter’s social networks from Miami. She is also the one who teaches Taylen, as well as her two little brothers. “We take school very seriously, it’s priority number 1,” assures the father.
The girl started homeschooling a month before school started in Miami, so she could take a long break during Fashion Weeks in Milan and Paris, he says.
“The truth is, I’m not a big fan of the school system, whether public or private. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about homeschooling.”
When asked if their daughter is a business, Josh calmly responds, “People see her through the prism of photos, but, in real life, she’s a child first and foremost.”
However, Taylen, who proudly emphasizes having “participated in fifteen fashion seasons”, sometimes gives the impression of having forgotten it. “I love children,” she says, for example. ” I have a lot of friends. They are so proud of what I do. I don’t feel any different.”
What if one day she got tired of the catwalks? “We will leave the fashion world in a second. Without hesitation,” promises his father.