TWO WOMEN CLAD IN SHEER PEARL-DOTTED bodysuits with giant white roses strapped to their heads greet guests entering a Fashion Week party at Hotel Fouquet's in New York City. A sign outside the room notes that the capacity is 74 people, but more than 200 guests have RSVP'd. The noise is deafening, though that matters little: the point of this party is to photograph and be photographed.
One woman wears a leopard-print minidress with a matching coat, another a blazer with no shirt underneath. Several women fix their makeup in the mirrored cocktail tables scattered around the room. Even the DJ pauses to take a selfie.
Many of the attendees have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers on social media, but the star of the night is Amber Venz Box, the host of the event and president and co-founder of LTK, one of the most popular influencer platforms in the world. Box, 36, usually keeps a relatively low profile: She lives on a ranch in Texas with her co-founder, CEO, and husband Baxter Box and their four kids in a location she won't disclose for privacy reasons. But in this room, influencers clamor for a picture with the willowy redhead. Several call her their hero. One of the richest self-made women in the U.S., with Forbes estimating her net worth at $315 million in 2021, she helped pioneer the modern influencer economy by building a bridge between content creators and advertising dollars.
"We've come such a long way," she says in a welcome speech. "Looking at the guest list for today, 10% of you in the room are LTK millionaires." Everyone swivels their heads in search of these mystery super earners. A man next to me, clad entirely in black, whispers, "Damn, let me take off my sunglasses and take a look around."
Denne historien er fra December 09, 2024-utgaven av Time.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra December 09, 2024-utgaven av Time.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
An exuberant ode to human possibility
VERY RARELY DOES THE RIGHT MOVIE ARRIVE AT precisely the right time, at a moment when compassion is in short supply and the collective human imagination has come to feel shrunken and desiccated.
Broadcasting a crisis for the world to see
ON SEPT. 5, 1972, A 32-YEAR-OLD PRODUCER NAMED Geoffrey S. Mason was working in a control room for ABC Sports in Munich while 12 hostages, including several members of the Israeli Olympic delegation, were being held in a building nearby.
The Power of the Peer
WITH MENTAL-HEALTH CARE IN SHORT SUPPLY, CAN REGULAR PEOPLE FILL THE GAP?
QUEERING THE STORY
Luca Guadagnino directs Daniel Craig in an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' 1985 novella Queer
Shopping under the influence
LTK CO-FOUNDER AMBER VENZ BOX SAW THE FUTURE OF RETAIL. IT TOOK YEARS FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD TO CATCH UP
The Kingmaker
Elon Musk's partnership with the President-elect
Turkey's Erdogan plots his next power grab
RECEP TAYYIP Erdogan is a political survivor.
Why maiden names matter in the age of AI and identity
IN THE DIGITAL AGE, A NAME IS MORE THAN JUST A label. It's tied to our professional history and social media presence.
The D.C. Brief
INSIDE DONALD TRUMP'S ORBIT, it's become a given that the former and future President can bypass Congress to magically fill his Cabinet with the loyalists of his choosing.
Let's embrace vulnerability in dating
AS A DATING COACH AND THE DIRECTOR OF RELATIONship science at Hinge, I often hear from people who feel like there's something big they need to disclose on early dates-chronic illness, mental-health struggles, college debt, family estrangement, lack of romantic experience, or trauma.
