Meet Mr Likes

He went from knowing 'zero people' to becoming the most connected man in fashion and Hollywood. Alexis Swerdloff reveals the secret behind Derek Blasberg's success

- Lynette Botha

It was a crisp July evening in Paris, and a small assortment of celebrities and fashion people were milling around the basement of the Frank Gehry-designed Louis Vuitton Foundation. The occasion was the Love Ball, hosted by Natalia Vodianova. Tuna tartare and Champagne were being served. Kanye West was standing alone in a corner. Suddenly, a sweet-faced man in a tuxedo arrived, and the room’s energy became palpably less stiff. ‘Hiiii, Derek,’ said Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci.

‘Hiiii, Derek,’ said Riccardo’s date, the Italian model Mariacarla Boscono. ‘Hiiii, Derek,’ said Marc Jacobs. This is how people tend to greet Derek Blasberg, a man who’s become the object of much fascination among those in his orbit – not to mention his more than half a million Instagram followers.

Both a cameraman and a photographer, each for a separate job, were trailing him. Since April 2016, he’s been the host of his own fashion-news show, CNN Style, which airs on CNN International. He’s also Vanity Fair’s ‘Our Man on the Street’ and a senior starter at the Gagosian Gallery, where he works with the publications department and connects the expensive art with his friends.

Despite all this, and the fact that he’s constantly popping up in one outlandishly fabulous place after another – in Sardinia on a hike with Gwen Stefani or on Katy Perry’s arm at the Golden Globes – his name still elicits the frequent, ‘but what does he actually do?’