Barbara Palvin, Meghan Markle are biggest fashion and beauty influencers - data studies

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Aug 31, 2021

Two new studies have hailed Barbara Palvin and Meghan Markle as the key influencers for women globally as far as fashion, beauty and general icon status are concerned.

In the first, research by Gala Bingo looked at social media followings, Google searches, media mentions and fan engagement, to identify the most talked-about women in the 100 biggest countries on the planet.

Barbara Palvin topped that list with Georgina Rodriguez, Chiara Ferragni, Nikkie Tutorials and Ngọc Trinh completing the top five.

Hungarian model Palvin has a social media following of more than 17 million and has made a huge impact both through her Victoria’s Secret appearances and her work with other brands. 

Meanwhile, Dutch makeup artist and beauty vlogger Nikkie de Jager, better known by her YouTube name Nikkie Tutorials, has risen to fame since 2015 on the back of her YouTube videos. 

And while a survey by the firm of 2,000 UK consumers also found that women prize traits such as charitable giving, championing other women, and academic achievements in their role models, social media status is set to stay as a key way to influence consumers for some time yet. 

The survey found that Millennials are more than six times as likely as over-65s to be inspired by a person’s social media following (19% vs 3%), and 80% say they’re more inspired by celebrities than by people they know, compared to 62% of older women. 

Meanwhile, another study showed that Meghan Markle is the most “newsworthy” celebrity beauty icon. The team at beauty site RY said she’s had 88.5 million articles written about her hair, make-up and skincare secrets, beating Kim Kardashian by over 10 million articles. 

It based its analysis on Google news data and put Meghan Markle easily in top spot. Kim Kardashian was second on just over 71 million articles in a list that included plenty of her family members. Taylor Swift was third on 60.6 million and next were Khloe Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, Kourtney Kardashian, Beyoncé, Kate Middleton, Kylie Jenner and Britney Spears.

Meghan Markle also figured on the list for those whose specific skincare regimes attracted the most attention but she was only in eighth spot this time. 

At the top of the ‘Skinspiration’ list was Rhianna, followed by JLo, Kylie Jenner, Paris Hilton, Miranda Kerr, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Aniston, then Meghan Markle, Kendall Jenner and Bella Thorne.