Surrounded by shelves heaving with Prada handbags and two dozen young female fans dressed head to toe in luxury brands, the man known in China as Mr Bags is in his element. “My first thought is that it’s a classic look,” he says, scrutinising the outfit of one of his “bagfans” — his name for followers of his blogs. He and the bagfans have gathered at an event to promote Prada’s new line of Cahier handbags at a store in an upscale Beijing mall.
Twenty-four-year-old Mr Bags, real name Tao Liang, boasts 3m followers on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, and WeChat, a messaging and ecommerce app, and is said by PR staffers to command tens of thousands of dollars per post from brands seeking sales among the world’s biggest luxury consumers. (Mr Tao declined to give figures.) According to consultancy Bain, in 2016 Chinese shoppers were responsible for 30 per cent of luxury purchases, more than any other nationality.
He is one of a league of fashion bloggers — a subset of what the industry calls key opinion leaders (KOLs) — who are at the vanguard of luxury marketing. “Bloggers have filled a void on the internet in China, ahead of luxury fashion brands and publishers,” say analysts at Exane BNP Paribas, a French bank, which ranked Mr Bags third on its list of China’s top 10 fashion bloggers.
