The fashion industry in has grown tremendously over the last decade and several top fashion bloggers in Kenya have been steering the growth.
From numerous clothe lines being launched to tens of fashion galas being held annually and hundreds of professionals in the fashion world coming out to proclaim there is indeed a lucrative career in the sector, the industry has seen its fair share of progress.
However, not as much as I expected especially in the internet space. With more people growing passionate about fashion and others building careers, I was looking forward to seeing an array of fashion influencers taking up blogging to expand their reach and provide quality content from their experience online.
My research on Fashion bloggers in Kenya led me to discover the huge gap of content that exist despite the insatiable thirst of quality content that Kenyan fashion enthusiasts have.
Social media is awash with self-proclaimed influencers and socialites taking pictures in cool places while clad fashionably but 90% of these people know nothing about fashion.
Kenya has very few successful fashion bloggers.
Why are they few, is fashion blogging that hard?
Does the glam that comes with fashion blogging distract bloggers from focusing on great content?
Why do so many fashion bloggers give up within the first 3 years while others transition to lifestyle and travel blogging?
In this article, I’m going to reveal to you the top fashion blogger in Kenya. I was only able to come up with a list of fewer than 10 bloggers after conducting a great deal of research. My attention was brought to the lack of serious fashion bloggers.
A serious fashion blogger in my view is a content creator who mostly uses their blog to provide quality and impactful fashion content on their blog.
These are people who may have studied a fashion-related course or have years of experience in the fashion industry and are transforming their knowledge into content such as advice, guides and creative idea through their blog.
Having a huge following on Instagram basically because you post daily pictures and videos of you in fancy places wearing the latest designs and luxury accessories does not qualify you to be a fashion blogger. You are merely looking for attention.
However, if you can transform your ideas, experiences and skills into content especially articles that people can read and learn a thing or too which they can apply in their lives to be more fashionable, now I can call you a fashion blogger.
Criteria for selection
There were three major things I was looking at when coming up with this list of top fashion bloggers in Kenya. First, you must have a blog. That’s a no brainer. Over the years the term blogger has been eroded to include content writers in social media platforms. This to me is ridiculous.
One of the terms and conditions of social media platforms is the fact that any content posted within the platforms is no longer your intellectual property but belongs to the company which can do whatever it feels like with it. That’s why people’s accounts get pulled down every day for posting content that ‘rubs them wrongly’
Secondly, your blog must have a good amount of traffic coming in every month. You cannot have a blog with content that nobody reads and call yourself a blogger, influential blogger for that matter.
A blog must have a considerable amount of traffic streaming in every month as a result of writing content that attracts readers because of its quality and usefulness.
To check the traffic of fashion bloggers in Kenya, I used SiteworthTraffic.com that uses a custom algorithm factoring website popularity, traffic ranks, and backlinks among other things to come up with a good estimation of a website’s monthly traffic. I’ve used this tool for my site, compared it with my google analytics and realized it’s almost accurate
Thirdly, a fashion blogger’s Instagram must have a good following. Ironically, we still need social media to build successful blogging businesses today especially when dealing with niches such as food, lifestyle, and most certainly fashion.
A good following on Instagram proves that you have built a great reputation in the fashion world and your pictures can testify your daily activities as a fashion enthusiast.
Enough with fuss. Here is your list
Top Fashion Bloggers in Kenya
1. FashionableStepMum.com
The Fashionable Step Mum is a lifestyle and fashion blog by Catherine, a stepmom and kick-ass wife to the man who makes it worth it as she describes herself. Her’s is a story of the transition from a single girl to a step mum and the struggles of being a stepmom of 6 children.
She presents her life story is such a unique and interesting way highly identifiable with mums especially step mums. She also shares her past and insecurities which many people relate with. She has won the 2019 Bake Awards Fashion and Style blog of the year.
Fashionablestepmum.com is the most visited fashion blog in Kenya with close to 19,000 monthly readers. Her regular post updates contribute greatly to this fete. She also has a huge following of over 101,000 Instagram followers
2. ThisIsEss.com
Sharon Mundia is no new face in the blogging industry. She has been around for the last almost a decade and has made huge moves in the media world following her huge success from her blog. Her TV show Living with Ess which airs on NTV is perhaps her biggest achievement so far but this girl has no limits.
ThisIsEss started as a lifestyle and fashion blog but transition into a whole publication focused on women with topics ranging from food, skincare, beauty, travel, relationships, mental health entertainment, career finance etc. It currently has a dedicated team of professionals taking care of all matters of blogging.
The blog gets over 12,000 monthly readers and is the second most popular fashion blog in the country. This success in my view is courtesy of the multi-topical strategy Sharon has implemented. On Instagram however, she is the queen; 332,000 followers on her main account and 32,000 on her secondary account.
3. LuciaMusau.com
Lucia Musau is an accomplished PR consultant and Award-winning lifestyle and fashion blogger. She comes across as a smart and aggressive young lady with enviable accomplishments such as her associate status in the Chartered Institute Public Relations.
The idea to start her blog came when her sister took a photo of her and posted it on Facebook only to be followed by a myriad of questions of who she was.
Her instantly captivating appearance and personality seemed a good reason to build a name for herself. After all, she knew a lot about PR. She dreams of styling the First Lady.
Her blog gets close to 6,000 monthly readers and her wild Instagram account is home to 109,000 followers. She tries to post one article every 2 months which is not bad but with her big name in the fashion industry she can do much more.
4. NancieMwai.co.ke
Nancie Mwai started her blog as a hobby besides her fulltime job but with the success in the blogging industry and on Instagram, she decided to quit her job and pursue a career in fashion blogging. This decision set her on a path of greatness and seems to be working well for her.
She has received international recognition for her diverse contribution to the fashion industry and has been named a favourite blogger by the Conde Naste; a global fashion media company.
She has also won twice with Bake Award under the fashion and style categories and landed an endorsement as 2015’s Brand Ambassador for Adele Dejak.
Nancie’s blog currently gets just about 1600 monthly visitors. She has so much to offer but may be tied up with a lot of travelling and non-blogging work. However, she has a huge following of 135,000 fans on Instagram, second only to Sharon Mundia.
5. Honorable Mentions
I’ve chosen to use this position to list all the other worthy to mention fashion bloggers. These influences have built a name and cut a niche in the fashion industry. Some have built blogs around their work but most of them have very few monthly readers, are not active bloggers or are currently offline.
Nonetheless, they have huge followings on social media and are influencers in mainstream media. These personalities ought to contribute more to the fashion blogging sector.
Meanwhile, men lack terribly in this sector and it is understandable; it’s not a thing for most men. However, we still have several successful male bloggers and social media personalities.
- Sylvia Njoki – Instagram
- Joy Kendi – Instagram
- Miss Turu – Instagram
- Shanniq Monicah Muthoni – TheFashionMobster.com, Instagram
- Anita Mogere – FromCurvesWithLove.com, Instagram
- Nelly – GeekOnFashion.com, Instagram
- Maureen Bandari – MaureenBandari.com, Instagram
- Reina Kimeu – FashionForensicAfrica.me, Instagram
Men Fashion Bloggers
- Fred Anyona – SoYouLikeFashion.com, Instagram
- Muriuki Kagiri – TheDapperBrother.com, Instagram
- Olav Arthur Mburu – Instagram