What Birkins, influencers, and the collapse of visibility as power have in common.
Written by Siobhan James, taken from her Substack.
What do Birkins and influencers have in common?
There’s something interesting happening when objects or roles that once symbolised access and scarcity become widely attainable.
When I was in Japan over Christmas, I saw how accessible the Birkin is now.
A Birkin hasn’t changed, but its meaning has.
What was once a marker of relationship, time, and discretion is now often a product of visibility and resale.
The same shift is playing out in the influencer industry.
Influence used to be built slowly through trust, proximity, and consistency.
Now visibility is easier to buy, replicate, and scale.
That doesn’t make either less valuable, but it does change what they signal.
When everyone can be seen, visibility stops being the advantage. What carries weight instead is credibility, discernment, and the ability to compound trust over time.
When access widens, meaning evolves, and the real question becomes where long-term power sits once exclusivity is no longer the differentiator.
