I KNOW where I’ve gone wrong in life. I’ve never stuck a phone on the end of a metal stick, held it above my head and sucked in my cheeks and pouted for all I’m worth.
I’ve not had my lips filled and plumped, I don’t have an Instagram account onto which I’ve uploaded thousands of photos taken outside the windows of expensive fashion shops which most can’t afford to enter. And I’ve never come up with a cosmetics range (or had one conceived for me.)
I guess I just don’t have what it takes to be Kylie Jenner, at 21 the youngest self-made billionaire of all time. Thankfully.
No, this isn’t sour grapes. The feeling emerges from the awareness this isn’t a wonderful self-made success story at all, it’s a selfie success story derived from the fact Jenner is part of a massively successful American reality TV family, The Kardashians, possibly the most self-obsessed family on the planet
Kylie Jenner never had to go to a bank manager and grovel, asking for 10k for a start-up. She’s been famous since the age of ten. That’s why Bybreen Samuels, author of the business book 10 Steps to Building a Successful Organisation, believes “describing Kylie Jenner as a ‘self-made billionaire’ is a misnomer” because “at no time has she faced true entrepreneurial challenges”.
Thanks to her social media base, Jenner has had direct access to the whole range of privileges, connections and resources that flow from these factors.
Samuels says in sharp contast to that of Sara Blakely, who used all her $5,000 (£3800) savings to launch the slimming knickers Spanx, Jenner has “gained leverage by using her family name, fame and wealth.”
Jenner says her parents cut her off at15. Really? Did this mean she was thrown out of the Beverly Hills mansion and made to live in a trailer park on welfare, while selling perfume samples door to door?
No, what going it alone meant was a team of contract agents would arrive at her door with papers to sign whereby she attached her name to several companies, which then traded on her name. And that of her family.
There have even been been accusations that Kylie Jenner didn’t actually invent the lip product central to her main company.
In January 2017, make-up artist Vlada Haggerty claimed that Jenner had “stolen the creative style and aesthetic of her own work, such as the dripping gloss lip and golden finger tips,” and that Jenner had “a history of taking Haggerty’s original dripping lip art and passing it off as her own.”
Jenner later credited Vlada on social media and an undisclosed settlement was paid to avoid any future legal issues.
Kylie Jenner seems far from being financially savvy and doesn’t actually do too much in a business sense, in terms of strategy of staff management. (There are only 12.) Most of the responsibility is outsourced to her mom or “momager” Kris Jenner, who manages all her children’s financial operations – in return for a 10% cut. Orders and sales are outsourced to Shopify, a Canadian online company that also runs shops for Drake and Justin Bieber.
But what Jenner does, however, is think about putting on make-up. “Ever since I was probably 15 I’ve been obsessed with lipstick. I could never find a lip liner and a lipstick that were the perfect match. So that’s where I thought of the idea that I wanted to create my own product.”
Piers Morgan said on television yesterday, “Kylie Jenner is dimmer than a piece of bread.” Now, whether she is in fact thicker than Hovis or her success story seems thinner than her waistline is not the main problem with this Forbes news release.
What’s really worrying is the Kardashians are a circus television show parading little more than vapidity and self-promotion. They sum up the new term “autosexuality”, which fits perfectly with those who can’t walk past a mirror without stopping to stare. Donald Trump was once derided when he declared, “It’s very hard for them to attack me because I’m so good looking.” But it’s that very level of vanity which sums up the Kardashians. And what’s so dangerous about this is that young girls believe Kylie Jenner to be Wonder Woman. Janet Street Porter says: “As a role model, I just think she’s shocking to young girls, because what has she brought to the modern world and what will she be remembered by?”
American online magazine Elite Daily concurred. “Kylie Jenner is a narcissist,” it headlined. So let’s not buy into the Forbes press release.
If we’re looking for female role models think of Oprah Winfrey, who really did emerge into the world dirt poor. Let’s praise instead the women who have made real sacrifices to set up businesses.
Kylie Jenner’s success selling cosmetics? Come on. My mother once sold Avon products round the doors, supported by little more substantial than a small green-wove case and a very presentable C&A suit and blouse looked presentable.
She didn’t make a billion dollars but had she 128m Instagram followers and a selfie stick she just might have.
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