Fashion teams now face a clear budget and strategy decision: continue treating Instagram as a broadcast megaphone or invest in community-first programming that connects online content to offline gatherings, Eva Chen says. Usage metrics remain strong — Ofcom reports time spent on Instagram in the UK rose 60% over the last two years, and Emarketer finds US Gen Z adults average an hour per day — yet how people want to use the platform is shifting toward peer-to-peer interaction and real-world meetups.
The Story in Pictures
Chen, Meta’s vice president of fashion partnerships, has worked with designers, brands and creators on the platform for 11 years. She frames the change as a move away from staged, launch-and-disappear moments toward content that seeds ongoing conversation and occasions for people to meet. “If Instagram feels like it changes every six months, every year, it’s because it does,” she says. “It’s a living, breathing ecosystem in my mind.”
The shift comes as social networks face sharper public scrutiny: Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to resolve US claims about addicting children while denying wrongdoing, a development that has intensified attention on how platforms shape attention and behaviour. For luxury and mainstream houses alike, Chen argues the practical response is to use Instagram to document processes and to create real-world touchpoints that are later recorded and amplified on the platform.
She points to a luxury house that sent gardening kits to valued clients ahead of a holiday in China; the brand itself did not post the gift, but user-created content made the gesture viral and reframed it as an invitation to get outside and “touch grass.” Chen also cites book clubs run by names ranging from Chanel to Dua Lipa, which operate partly on social media but gain momentum through in-person participation and ongoing conversation.
That pattern changes what executives should measure. Many CEOs, Chen says, remain focused on follower totals, while creative directors place more value on comments, recurring engagement and peer-to-peer interactions — the signals that a brand is sparking genuine conversation rather than a temporary spike. The next phase, she predicts, will see Instagram act as an engine for communal experiences: creators organising in-person watch parties, and brands converting online interest into live gatherings.
The practical consequence is straightforward. Fashion teams must reallocate resources toward community programming, accelerate content iteration, and design experiences that travel between the feed and the physical world. Houses led by creative directors who grew up on the platform tend to succeed because they treat it as a place to share work-in-progress, surface reactions and iterate publicly. For brands that cling to broadcast tactics, the risk is fading relevance; for those that prioritise sustained dialogue and offline connection, Instagram remains a platform to deepen relationships.
