Photo: Alex Frank
Since starting her popular street-style blogWeWoreWhatin 2010, Danielle Bernstein has launched a highly successfulclothing brand, landed on Forbes' 30 under 30 list (at the age of 24), written aNew York Times' best-selling autobiography,amassed more than 2.7 million followersacross her social media platforms and established herown charity initiative. She’s also faced calls for her cancelation.
“Of course there are things I’ve done over the years that I wish I did a little bit differently,” the entrepreneur tells PEOPLE in an intimate interview. “But I feel like I learned so much from everything, and that also came with growing up as a person. I started at 18, I’m now 29.”
While Bernstein has one of the most successful style blogger stories to come out of the mid-aughts, the macro influencer’s extensive — and impressive — resume did not grant her immunity from the reckoning that has confronted all facets of the fashion world over the past 18 months. A dismantling is happening at the core of the influencer industry: the hyper-curated feeds and “tap for likes” culture that defined platforms like Instagram in its infancy are now being dismissed as inauthentic.
Like so many of her peers, Bernstein’s career has been put under a microscope. Alongside her rising list of milestones there has also been backlash. She’s become a target for watchdog Instagram accounts as well as the Gen Z-ers on TikTok, a community with a loud rallying cry for authenticity. She’s been called out for Photoshopping herself in Instagram photos andtraveling during the pandemic. She’s currently involved in a copyright infringement lawsuit with a Brooklyn-based lingerie brand, a small business that alleges Bernstein copied the pattern of female nude silhouettes featured on its tissue paper for her label’s own line of swimsuits and wallpaper, a claim which Bernstein denies.
The 29-year-old Long Island native seems to have the self-awareness to know she’s had missteps — she’s also taken time during the pandemic to reflect and recognize that what worked for her brand 11 years ago is not always going to be received the same way now. (Bernstein credits her life coach, meditation and startingWeGaveWhat— the philanthropic arm of WeWoreWhat — for helping her realign her focus.)
“It would be crazy to say that every mistake didn’t really help me as a person and a business owner,” Bernstein shares when asked about past controversies.
And while she declined to speak to any ongoing copycat design allegations (her legal team recommended she not comment), Bernstein did sound off on almost everything else. Below, the style-blogging trailblazer, known for her millennial candor, opens up exclusively to PEOPLE.
The industry has evolved tremendously since you started WeWoreWhat in 2011. Have you felt the pressure to embrace a less curated approach to social media?
Do you regret Photoshopping images of yourself?
I’m sorry that there was a time where I was not even remotely close to comfortable in my own skin and was sharing highly Photoshopped images of myself. And I regret that I didn’t share my imperfections earlier, because obviously we all have them, and it also would have helped me to relate to my followers even more. I’ve learned to become a lot prouder of my imperfections, and to be a lot more open with my followers. That’s only really happened during the pandemic – where I was able to own up to Photoshopping and editing my photos, and really explaining why.
There seems to be a tug of war that exists between holding someone accountable and canceling them. What have your experiences as a public person taught you about cancel culture?
Cancel culture is undeniably toxic. It’s unhealthy for our society to hide behind this notion of accountability, then not actually allow for room for growth. I’ve learned to ignore it, and speak to my supporters, and keep moving forward in a positive light. I think there will always be haters. It comes with the territory. It was tough when it first started happening to me over the pandemic. But I have very much learned to keep looking forward, and not focus on haters. They just can always seem so much louder, but there really are, at the end of the day, a lot more supporters.
What tools do you use to help you weather online criticism?
If a person is already committed to hating you, you’re not going to change their mind. Even if everything is false, and even if you want to speak your truth, and you want to defend yourself, you can only do that up to a certain extent. I tried that a lot during the pandemic, and I found it not to be helpful. I’ve transitioned my strategy, when it comes to these sorts of false accusations, which they’re simply that, false accusations, and have just learned to move forward from them and speak to my supporters. If I must deal with things behind the scenes, I will, but do I need to put out that toxic energy to all my followers, and defend some crazy accusation? No, I don’t feel the need to do that. I’ve learned to just focus on that, and almost laugh at it, to a certain extent, which I was not able to do. And that has come with a lot of self-work, and a lot of therapy and meditation.
As a millennial entrepreneur, how have you been trying to connect with Gen Z on platforms like TikTok?
At first, I found it hard to relate to the Gen Z audience, but I worked to build relationships with my colleagues and friends of that age group. A few of my employees are Gen Z, and they teach me everything that is going on. I’m really learning from them, and I want to hear from them. What do they want to see in the influencer space? What are they liking? What are they not liking? I’m constantly learning from them in the hopes to evolve and relate to them. But I also know what my demographic is, and it’s a bit older. I know where to focus my efforts, but it doesn’t mean I want to limit myself.
Are you shifting how you engage with your core follower base?
There’s been a shift more recently into creating this real community with your followers. Rather than focusing on growing your follower count, it’s about harnessing and engaging with your current followers more than ever. That’s really what I’ve been focusing on, and what I feel like the future of the creator economy is all about. Creating accounts on platforms likePatreonwhere it’s community-only, with a paywall, allows me to share a more behind-the-scenes look of my business and my life – more than I ever would on Instagram. It has been so important and has created such a community with my followers, who are really those dedicated, die-hard followers since the very beginning. It’s helped me really connect with them in a new way, and that’s really where I’m focused now. It’s been great. I’ve learned over the past year to really speak to my supporters. And it’s been super helpful to be putting out that positive message all the time, and to keep on moving forward, and to receive that positivity right back.
What are some steps you have taken to prioritize your mental health?
Prioritizing my mental health only became a focus in the past year. Every day I open myself up to millions of people and I share so much of my life, and I’ve had to take a step back to protect my mental wellbeing. It comes with the territory of being a public figure, but in an effort to lift the curtains, I’ve started to share my own struggles over the past year with mental health, with my followers, so that they know they’re not alone. I think it’s important that I allow myself to be even more vulnerable with them and have that authentic communication. Outside of work, I practice Kundalini breath work and meditation, and different forms of therapy, like working with my life coach. I recently had a one-on-one session with Deepak Chopra to discuss mental health, and it was an awesome experience. We had a conversation about haters, and cancel culture, and he shared some really insightful things with me. He had tons of different ways to handle bullies and online social media criticism.
WeGaveWhathas grown exponentially since you started it less than two years ago. What has the experience been like for you?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
source: people.com
