Last Updated on May 14, 2021
Arianne Chavasse is a fashion lover, travel addict, runway enthusiast and influencer on Intellifluence. Arianne has a social media audience reach of over 50,000 in addition to her blog, Say Curls, which launched in 2016. Based in Romania, Arianne says she is on a creative journey, exploring her senses of personal style with the goal of inspiring her audience. You can learn more at saycurls.com.
Can you tell us a little bit about your background as an influencer as well as what motivated you to create Say Curls?
Well my background is more artsy because I studied architecture so that’s kind of why I wanted to be a painter at one point but then, you know, I felt like architecture was more for me. Then at some point like I started photography, I’m still doing it so basically I kind of found this outlet in photography for awhile. And like in 2015 there was this movement where how curly hair is so different than straight hair, you know. There was so much insight going on in the community like how many types of hair [there are] like one straight, two is a bit wavy, and three is curly and, you know, the coily one is four and around that time I put so much into discovering how my hair is, what type of texture it has, density and all that stuff. And, you know, of course at first I was just like yeah let me just do more about it because I feel like there is so little insight about it and still I barely see products being made for curly hair.
I have some sort of idea that’s to do products. It was like at the beginning of my journey I was sitting around saying I want to do some sort of beauty products and it’s probably going to be about curly hair because I can test it and I can tell you okay this is great and this is not. So for me it’s just this one on one approach with my community and my audience and this is how it started and then later I tried to figure out how fashion is and I’m still figuring out if there is a passion for curly. Hair, if this makes sense. I feel like Marc Jacobs on the runway has a lot of curly haired girls for some reason so I think there is something going on in fashion as far as texture goes. On Project Runway depending on what type of vibes it was going for for the collection there has to be some type of texture sometimes or some beachy, you know, so I think hair has something to do with fashion. You know, so I’m still keeping myself on the same path I don’t want to be like, you know, outside of this image I started with.
So yeah I’m still growing with fashion and beauty and of course travel comes of course because if you do fashion you have to travel for a lot of events and stuff. And I mean it’s because of people asking me why I stay the course because I feel like even in fifty years I’m still going to have curly hair. So for me it’s just this very natural thing it’s just for people to know if \they say say curls and they look at me they know okay so it has to do with me and it always has to be with me all the time because, you know, this is how my hair is going to be like.
You have a presence within your blog in addition to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. What is your favorite social platform to use and why?
My social media that I use the most is probably Instagram because it connects me very easily with all the people that I’ve met I will approach like for events and it’s so much easier to connect with people on Instagram. Even Twitter I feel like it’s very easy to connect. Facebook, I don’t know why people use Facebook for a lot of reasons but not really for social ones. It’s so much easier if I don’t know – like I started LinkedIn last year and I feel like I have almost one hundred connections just because, you know, I’m on LinkedIn. I usually don’t ask nowadays but people just want to connect on LinkedIn. It’s like this, you know, bubble that is building up, I don’t know, so fast sometimes you cannot control it and same goes for Instagram. People just come in because they see something and they just want to see it, you know, develop I guess.
You recently wrote a post called “What does influencer mean?” where you wrote “producing evergreen content for me is what blogging is all about.” Coincidentally, we published a blog post yesterday about using influencers to produce evergreen content. I get the feeling a lot of people think of influencers as those who solely post timely content, but there’s much more to it than that. Can you tell us your strategies that go into creating content that is lasts a long time?
Well I feel like for most you have to have a voice. So for me at first I was not sure what my voice was but I feel like writing about it so what thoughts you have writing it on paper or digitally it helps you understand your motivation behind saying some things for a topic. Nowadays I’m more like for, you know, this type of talking some more like with a voice than with writing, I don’t know.
It kind shifted swiftly but I still feel like writing is a very good way to create evergreen content because once people see it and read about it they start to feel something [but] where you talk about it they are like, you know, not really focused all the time, they’re thinking about a lot of stuff so writing is actually something where you have a stronger presence and evergreen content usually is being published either digitally on, you know, platforms or like press or if you want to have open media like I have or later they can repost it or, you know, write small articles about it or snippets if you feel this is relevant so of course the message is more outgoing and it can used for evergreen for a lot of niches.
Describe influencer marketing in Romania…
Well I mean there’s a lot of niches if you want to know I just, you know, approach someone like I know this girl since more than a year now and I feel like a lot of people are moving towards the USA. And, you know, our community is more linked to, I don’t know, Saudi Arabia, Turkey when it comes to media so that’s why our music sometimes sounds like so weird, I don’t know why, but you have to understand media and especially music has to do a lot with the Balkan and the Turkey area. So, of course there’s a lot of beats that have to do with orient even if you want to let it out.
They will just come into the press like so fast. Even bigger like, I don’t know if you know, INNA for example she’s very big also. She also travels to California and the West Coast to film her videos all the time so I feel like there’s still a strong market for us to be [working] with the USA and, you know, called travels and all that. So I can see a lot of development happening even while I’m working here or there I still see people. So for example in your Fashion Week just people I didn’t really know that but there are couture Fashion Week presence also with Romanians because I attended one of the Trump hotels I’m not sure which one because there’s so many but it was big venue so she is doing couture week. So she’s member of the couture week family and so I think there’s a lot of presence. Also for our community in fashion week as a designer and I’m very sure there’s more than that I just saw snippets of it. Also funny things so this designer she had a photographer which is also from the same community as I am which is funny. I never felt like I could meet so many people in one week. I mean it was not even planned we just met and then realized “oh we’re the same.
Okay that was cool” so yeah that was funny because we never expected that. So just to show the diversity of the niches that we can travel in all types of media, it’s very diverse. I don’t think like both have published another I don’t know – some sort of public figure, she is called [Anastasia] Soare (ABH) and she is very big with beauty I guess and she’s supposed to tell people what she uses for makeup routine. So even in beauty there is a lot of people who have some sort approach to the US market. For example I was approached to do a beauty line so a makeup line with the West Coast, I do not know which one it was and so they’re going to do some sort of makeup with my intentional idea I guess behind it because I’m supposed to launch some of my palette just like in one month at the end of August is when they’ll launch it so I’ve very excited.
And because there are so many opportunities that mean you have a voice then you can reach a bigger audience and yeah that’s all that matters because if you have a voice then it means you have some sort of message that can be, you know, the message to a lot of people and again I feel – because you’re coming back to Say Curls I feel like curly hair described a lot of cultures and a lot of backgrounds so it’s not related just to me and that’s why I remain, you know, the same. I don’t think I want to lose the domain for that reason because I feel like Say Curls and curly hair has to do with all genders and all ages and so on so it means it’s a bigger message than just me.
What are some of your goals for Say Curls (as well as your social media in general) for the rest of the year?
Yeah I mean just as I mentioned like at the end of summer they’re going to launch this makeup palette and, you know, at first of course I asked “can we do makeup or there’s not a lot of makeup that supports curly hair can we do some products” and they said “oh we can but in like half a year maybe” so probably next year we’re going to have Say Curls beauty product like for curly hair who knows. I’m very excited because the beauty community started to understand so much about makeup, how especially in the US of the FDA is approaching the launch, how the ingredients are made, and all that stuff including for hair and all that stuff because I know like with Bumble and Bumble how they do their products always different. So if you want to launch like a good product even if you’re not working so close with this industry you have to know specific things that you want to have in your line when launching it as an ingredient, if you want it to be vegan or non-vegan, if you want to have alcohol, you know, those dangerous things that are not so healthy for the hair you want to have those less and see if the market can come up with a good product and it’s sustainable.
Note: Influencer Spotlights are edited for time and clarity.
Andrew is the Head of Client Services for Intellifluence and has a background in communications. He is committed to helping brands get the most out of their campaigns and is the co-host of the Influencer Spotlight series.
