If you love the drama, glamor, and fast-paced evolution of the fashion world, chances are you follow at least a few fashion blogs. Maybe you even have your own fashion business or are considering starting one.
If so, you’re probably wondering how your favorite fashion bloggers make money – after all, running a blog for the love of the subject is perfectly fine, but everyone could use a little extra cash on the side.
As it turns out, there are several different ways that fashion blogs make money.
In this article, I’ll do a deep dive into different ways you can make money as a fashion blogger and look at some success stories you can use as inspiration for your own blog.
Now open your Burberry computer case, put on your Celine glasses, and let’s get started.
Summary: How do fashion bloggers make money?
Although there are tons of ways you can get creative and earn money as a fashion blogger, some of the most common ways that fashion bloggers earn a profit are:
- by using affiliate links on their blogs
- by seeking out brand partnerships and sharing sponsored posts
- by collaborating with brands on new products
- by getting tapped for marketing campaigns by retailers or brands
- by working another side hustle, such as fashion photography or style consulting
- by teaching what they know.
How Fashion Bloggers Earn Money: 6 Different Ways
While there are tons of different ways that fashion bloggers can theoretically earn money, let’s take a look at the six most common and reliable ways to earn a profit as a fashion blogger.
1. Affiliate Links
Across the blogosphere (that is, across pretty much every blogging niche you can think of), affiliate links are one of the best ways for bloggers to earn a profit from their content.
To get affiliate links on your blog, you must sign up with an affiliate links program. For fashion blogs, LTK and ShopStyle are two of the most common, but there are tons of affiliate links programs out there that you should explore.
Here’s how it works: once you’ve signed up with an affiliate links program, you simply recommend the products you love on your blog and include a link to that product through your affiliate links program.
When any of your viewers click on your link to make a purchase, you get a percentage of the profit.
For bloggers, one of the best things about making money through affiliate links is that it’s accessible to pretty much anyone, regardless of how many viewers your blog has gained.
As such, affiliate links are a great way to start earning money while you work towards growing and expanding your fashion blog.
2. Sponsored Posts and Product Sales
If your fashion blog has started to make a name for itself (that is, if you’ve put in the time and effort needed to start gaining some impressive audience and view numbers), then you can start reaching out to brands that might be interested in putting sponsored posts on your blog.
A sponsored post is any content that a retailer or brand pays you to produce. Sponsored posts are one of the most lucrative ways fashion bloggers make money since (depending on your blog’s popularity, of course) many brands are willing to drop some serious cash on getting their products into the hands of fashion influencers.
For example, the wildly popular fashion blog Who What Wear regularly partners with clothing and accessory brands and major retailers like Nordstrom to produce sponsored content.
Who What Wear is a truly inspirational success story, as the site was founded by two friends in 2006 and has grown into a massive international media company and one of the most popular sources for fashion news, tips, and tricks in the world.
But don’t worry, you don’t need to achieve international fame and millions of followers to attract brand partnerships: there are plenty of brands that are looking to partner with the newest, freshest faces in the fashion blogosphere.
With that said, most companies do prefer to partner with fashion bloggers who also have active social media platforms with decent follower numbers, so make sure you don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
If you want brands to see sponsoring with you as an unmissable opportunity, make sure you’re regularly producing engaging fashion-related content for Instagram, Pinterest, and/or YouTube in addition to your blog.
Just make sure that you’re always honest and straightforward about sponsored content. After all, you’re being paid to advertise a product, and your audience deserves to know that your perspective may be biased accordingly.
To keep everything as transparent as possible, many influencers include the hashtag #sponsored or #brandpartner with their sponsored posts.
Some companies will give fashion bloggers a specific image or text for them to use – I’ll discuss this further when we get to marketing campaigns.
However, others will instead give a set of parameters or instructions (such as taking photos with a product in a particular setting or with a specific hashtag) and then allow the influencer to create their own content – this is sort of like a hybrid collaboration/marketing campaign.
One famous example of this is Lululemon’s marketing strategy, which revolves around forming brand partnerships with fashion bloggers and micro-influencers and asking them to take pictures of themselves wearing Lululemon products in their daily lives.
This is becoming an increasingly lucrative way for fashion bloggers to make money, as more brands are transitioning to social media marketing as their primary form of advertising.
In fact, Insider Intelligence reports that companies’ spending on influencer marketing in 2024 is expected to surpass $4.14 billion.
In short, companies and marketing teams recognize the value of putting their products in the hands of trusted and beloved bloggers and influencers, and they’re willing to spend big money to do it.
3. Collaborations
Many fashion bloggers earn money through collaborations with designers, fashion houses, retailers, or even other influencers.
This means they work together to create a new product, collection, or line of products, which are then marketed both by the blogger and by his or her collaborators.
Brands will generally choose to collaborate with fashion bloggers whose style, aesthetic, and niche match their own.
For example, the popular fashion and lifestyle blogger Marianna Hewitt regularly earns money by collaborating with fashion brands such as House of CB and M. Gemi to design products that she then markets across her YouTube and Instagram platforms.
She has also created her own cosmetics brand and regularly collaborates with other brands such as Dior on marketing campaigns, which I’ll get into next.
4. Marketing Campaigns
While this one may seem similar to sponsored content, there’s an important distinction:
Whereas fashion bloggers and influencers are expected to produce their own sponsored content, with marketing campaigns the brand or retailer’s marketing team creates the content.
The blogger is then paid to promote this content across his/her social media channels.
Some brands, such as luxury jewelry and watchmaker brand Daniel Wellington, have even gone exclusively to social media with their marketing.
Daniel Wellington has seen massive success working with influencers and using hashtags such as #dwpickoftheday and #DanielWellington to reach a broad audience.
And while many brands design their marketing strategies around the already-rich-and-famous (such as Kendall Jenner’s marketing campaign for 818 Tequila), an increasing number of companies are finding that their money is better spent on micro-influencers and fashion bloggers, whose audiences may actually be more likely to trust their recommendations.
5. Photography & Other Side Hustles
If you’re a fashion blogger, there’s a good chance you have a pretty good grasp on many aspects of the industry.
One of the primary ways bloggers in general make money is by starting a side hustle selling services related to their industry, and fashion blogging is no exception.
If you’ve gotten good at photography, you could build up a portfolio of your work and market your services as a professional photographer on your blog and across your social media platforms.
If photography isn’t your thing, you could monetize your impeccable sense of style and sell consultations as a personal stylist, fashion consultant, or even as a personal shopper.
Fashion blogger Hallie Abrams of The Wardrobe Consultant has built a business around her blog, advising her “real people” clients – from nurses and teachers to stay-at-home moms – about how to find their own unique style, upgrade their wardrobes, refresh and style the items they already own, and feel fabulous when they leave the house every day.
Best of all, unlike fashion photography, being a fashion consultant or personal stylist doesn’t require you to travel – or even leave your house. Hallie Abrams offers in-person and Zoom consultations, and you could easily do the same.
6. Sell Classes and/or eBooks
This is closely related to having a side hustle, but it requires a bit more time to set up. If you’ve reached a decent number of followers and think it’s worth putting in the time, you can create and sell online classes or self-publish an eBook on fashion.
Writing a book may seem like a big step, but never underestimate your knowledge – you know a lot about the fashion world, and you can take your unique perspective (you know, the one you share with your followers on your blog every day) and turn it into a book.
Or, alternatively, you could choose to market and sell classes teaching what you know, from trend-watching and social media marketing to personal style and design advice.
One great example is journalist and plus-size fashion blogger Bethany Rutter, who leveraged the popularity of her blog and her own unique experience in the field to publish several books, including Plus+: Style Inspiration For Everyone.
Simply put, if you have a niche, there are almost definitely others out there who will want to learn from you.
Pro Tip: Be Yourself and Find Your Niche
If you’re an aspiring fashion blogger, it can seem daunting to try to enter the fast-paced, cutthroat world of fashion media (if you’ve seen “The Devil Wears Prada,” you know that the fear is real).
To make your blog successful, you have to cut through all the noise and create a truly unique content experience for your audience.
Don’t bother trying to compete with Vogue or Elle – your blog will never be able to match the resources those famous fashion publications have, and there’s no point in trying to deny that. But one thing that they don’t have is your unique voice and perspective.
It may sound corny, but in the world of blogging, it’s true: to stand out from the crowd, you have to find your niche and be yourself.
FAQs
Summary – How Fashion Bloggers Make Money
Just like fashion, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to earn money as a fashion blogger. What looks great on one person may not work for another, and the same goes for monetizing your fashion blog.
However, you can use this article as a jumping-off point to exploring how you can start earning money from your fashion blog and maybe even turn your blog into the career in fashion that you’ve always dreamed of.
References
- Influencer marketing statistics – https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/us-influencer-marketing-spending/
- The Wardrobe Consultant blog – https://www.thewardrobeconsultant.com/
- The Devil Wears Prada image – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458352/mediaindex/?ref_=tt_mv_close
- Ziprecruiter fashion blogger income statistics – https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Fashion-Blogger-Salary
