BATTLE OF THE BEIGE

As one social media star sues another for stealing her clean girl’ aesthetic, Rachel Richardson looks at a legal fight that has the potential to change the landscape of influencers

- Rachel Richardson

Sydney Nicole Gifford and Alyssa Sheil's commitment to a neutral aesthetic is strong. Their wardrobes are packed with beige garments that are styled daily into head-to-toe monochromatic looks. Their homes are just as one-note, with walls covered in calm, muted tones from paints with names like bone, putty or alabaster. Their floors are decked in natural wood, large windows are covered by light-diffusing ivory voiles, and oyster-coloured boucle furnishings are dotted around minimal and sparse rooms. Their dedication to their beige lifestyle even extends to the emoji they both frequently use in Instagram captions – the off-white coloured heart.

The women follow what’s known as the “clean girl” aesthetic. Its high priestess is Hailey Bieber and it is now such a ubiquitous style that for anyone to claim ownership of it requires a great deal of magical thinking. But that’s exactly what Gifford has done after she accused fellow social media influencer Sheil of stealing her “neutral, beige, and cream aesthetic” in a first-of-itskind legal action. It’s a case that many social media influencers are watching closely, so tied up are their incomes now with the image that they “sell” online.

Gifford, 24, and Sheil, 21, were once acquaintances who lived close to each other in Texas. As fashion and lifestyle influencers who both hawk Amazon products for a living, they decided to – in social media speak – “collab” and shoot some photographs together.

Both women scour the e-commerce site to find items they think their audience will buy to make posts that sell them hard. They link to their recommended products and earn roughly 3 to 4 per cent in commission if their viewers purchase the goods. For some products, like luxury beauty, they can earn a 10 per cent kickback.