Influence And/Or Identity?

This is where it gets interesting. These aren’t just products but extensions of an artist’s persona. And when a fan buys them, they’re not just buying a hoodie or a pair of Crocs.

They’re buying belonging.

Think about it. No one’s lining up to buy a random tie-dye sneaker by the thousands on a Tuesday morning. But slap J Balvin’s name on it and suddenly you’re not just wearing colour, you’re making a statement. Same goes for G-Dragon’s Air Force 1s. That paint-chipped swoosh isn’t just a design detail. It’s something other owners and fans will notice.

And it works both ways.

Artists know this. Brands know this. This isn’t really about taste anymore. It’s about identity. The fan becomes the ambassador. The product becomes a piece of the artist’s catalog. And the moment it sells out, it becomes proof: this artist has cultural weight; they can make themselves and those around them big bucks.

They can move units. Fast.

What started as accidental influence, a rapper wearing a jacket, a pop girl using a body mist on camera, is now a fully monetized playbook. Co-signs became collabs. Collabs became campaigns. Today, artists aren’t just musicians. They’re brand ecosystems. And the smart ones? They don’t just sell merch. They sell moments.

Whole narratives are packed into a product drop. And we love it.

It’s why fans will buy something even if they’ll never wear it. It’s why resale markets exist. It’s why a McDonald’s nugget pillow can become a holy grail item (hi, Travis Scott).

We like to pretend we’re above it, that we’re smarter than the system. But we’re not. Influence isn’t subtle anymore; it is a slap in the face. And we turn the other cheek, and ask for one more.

Pre Collab Machine

Before the doomscroll of Instagram, the fast product placements on TikTok, and before YouTube, we still wanted what musicians had. We wanted to dress like them, walk, talk, and act like them (10 points if you know the lyrics, 100 if you rapped in beat).

It was never planned; it naturally happened. We, simple creatures, want to be part of something - it is human nature to want to belong, it is how we survive and enjoy life, with people with whom we have stuff in common. Beatles mop-tops, Ramones and Guns N’ Roses bandanas and ripped jeans, Run DMC with their shell-toes, and anything Madonna wore.

Not a single thing is coming from a partnership pitch deck here. It came from the scene, the streets, from underfunded wardrobes, the do-or-die authenticity that made these acts icons.

If you are waiting for the mention of the anti-establishment, anti-polished, anti-younameit Punks, here it is: punks looked like punks, they had their own semi-uniform with personal twists. But you’d spot them a mile off. You knew one on sight.

We’re talking about a time before rebellion was for sale, before Cardi B x Reebok, and before every artist had a perfume. What people paid money for was simply to look like the artists they loved, without being marketed to.

Artists weren’t influencers yet, not in the way we understand it now. They were idols instead. People didn’t just want to support them. They wanted to be them. So they dressed the part. Bought the shoes. Cut their hair. And in doing so, they created the blueprint for everything we now call “a collab.”

There was no drop strategy. No exclusive promo boxes sent to celebrities.
There was just a look. A photo on a record sleeve. A moment on TV.

And that was enough.

The Era Of Amalgamation

The 80s and the 90s saw the biggest and most impactful shift. Musicians weren’t just on stage or MTV, they were suddenly in the front row, in the campaigns, and on the covers of Vogue.

Think Kate Moss dating rockstars, Courtney Love in Elle and Vanity Fair, ripped tights and smudged lipstick suddenly being called high fashion, and Tupac in Versace. Think Björk on Dazed.

Fashion houses, once reserved for the runway elite, started turning their gaze toward music. And music, with all its edge and influence, began looking back at high-fashion houses.
It was no longer just about influence. A new visual language was in the making. It became impossible to see where a brand ended and the artists began. And that blur trickled down into everything.

Magazine editorials turned into moodboards for high-street retailers. Artist covers became the reference points for entire collections. The fashion and music industries stopped orbiting each other and just collapsed into one. Repeatedly folded, until now you rarely have one without the other.

And now, with a slew of technology, it is faster, louder, and more invasive. Algorithms rule playlists and your timeline. You can purchase what you hear, Google what they wear, and buy it in seconds. And it doesn’t matter if it is an unbranded, no-defining-features item - the internet can find it anyway.

Or you can wear a vintage band tee you’ve thrifted, and like it or not, it is all the same thing.

Because you get influenced, and so do we.

You Look Like Your Spotify Wrapped

Whether you’re in Crocs, cowboy boots, or cherry red Dr. Martens, chances are they weren’t just picked out of nowhere. They were picked by influence. By the album you’ve had on repeat. By the persona you borrowed. By the mood a song made you chase, or a mood that made you chase a song.

The way you dress, speak, move, shop, it’s got fingerprints all over it.
Lyric captions. Tour tees. Lo-fi playlists with beige aesthetics. And, maybe even how you smell.

So the next time Spotify Wrapped rolls around and tells you who you are in numbers, don’t be surprised if your wardrobe already beat them to it. And you’re mirroring your most-streamed artist.

But honestly, who are we if not the music we love? Because when it’s all said and done, what we wear, post, spray on ourselves, and save to our playlist is just another way of saying, this is me.

Or at least, the version of us the music helped us find.

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