Style blogger’s glamorous world collapses amid fraud charges

Olivia Petter, The Independent

For a while, Chiara Ferragni had it all. A style influencer with a social media account that was earning up to six figures per post. Ambassadorships with Versace, Gucci, and L’Oreal, to name but a few. The 38-year-old Italian magnate had her own fashion, eyewear, fragrance, and beauty lines. A Netflix documentary has been made about her career and life with her famous rapper husband, whom she married in a 19th-century Sicilian palazzo, a wedding featured in American Vogue. A Kardashian-style reality TV series about their family, titled The Ferragnez. There was even a Barbie doll named after her.

And yet, in 2023, the same year that her company was valued at €75m (£65m), Ferragni’s extensive empire came crashing down — over a Christmas cake. Now, she’s facing jail time on charges of aggravated fraud. Dubbed “Pandorogate” by the Italian media, the scandal unfolded after the Italian Competition Authority accused Ferragni of falsely suggesting that proceeds from sales of a special edition Pink Christmas Pandoro cake, a traditional Italian delicacy, that she sponsored would go to a children’s hospital. The cakes were priced three times higher than normal.

An investigation into the finances behind the deal found that the cake manufacturer, Balcoco, donated €50,000 to the hospital and paid Ferragni €1m for her involvement. She was charged at a criminal trial in Milan in November and, if convicted, could face up to five years behind bars. To make matters worse, Ferragni was embroiled in a similar debacle just last year after Italian antitrust authorities investigated misleading communications about a set of Easter eggs sold in connection with children’s charities with the fashion mogul’s label. According to reports, just $41,650 of the $1.39m that Ferragni and the manufacturer earned went to charity.

This has led to a statute change, which has become popularly known as The Ferragni Law and is designed to regulate influencers with more than a million followers and combat false advertising. In terms of what comes next, Ferragni has already paid more than €3m to resolve these disputes, with a €1.2m settlement to a children’s autism organisation, €1m to the Turin children’s hospital and a €1m fine to the Italian Competition Authority. In December 2023, she posted an apology video on Instagram, admitting to a “communications error” over the cakes.

Ferragni launched her blog, The Blonde Salad, in 2009 when she was still a student at law school. Very quickly, she amassed a large and dedicated following, thanks to her personal, fashion-friendly posts that were magazine-like in their style. It tapped into the cultural mood of the time, all candid personal style photos featuring bold colours, gaudy prints, and silly faces that made her content seem aspirational but also relatable.

An early adopter of Instagram, she was one of the earliest social media influencers, posting tidbits from her life on her own terms. Quickly building up a significant number of followers, in 2015, she became the first blogger to land a Vogue cover, fronting Vogue Spain, and Harvard Business Review even ran its first-ever case study on a fashion influencer. “She was one of the first individuals to turn personal style content into a global brand, monetising her online presence while establishing partnerships with luxury labels,” says Andrew Witts, digital marketing expert at Studio 36, an SEO agency. “For many aspiring influencers, Chiara was the first person they truly recognised as having transformed influence into business success.”

For many, Ferragni’s career set the precedent for what influencers could do with their platforms. “Chiara Ferragni was the influencer that made many of us stop and think,” says Victoria Morais, digital marketing expert at Eskritor. “She started her blog in 2009 and somehow managed to turn her lifestyle and personality into a brand people cared about. For a lot of us creators, she was the first one we really noticed. And she had a knack for making her commercial partnerships look seamless and not just like a paid ad slapped on her page.”

Ferragni’s profile soared further when she married Fedez in a highly publicised ceremony said to be worth more than €1m that had people calling her the Italian Kim Kardashian — she wore three custom Dior gowns. The former couple have two children together, and to this day, Ferragni posts photos of them on her Instagram account, which currently has 28.1 million followers. It transpires that, even in the wake of scandal, her influence is such that she has maintained a loyal legion of fans.

“Chiara is not just a creator; in Italy, she is part of the cultural fabric,” explains Lauren Beeching, a reputation manager for celebrities and crisis PR specialist. “She built a fully fledged commercial empire at a time when influencer businesses were still considered experimental, and she became a reference point for how personal branding could evolve into something corporate and globally recognised.” Hence why the scandal has sent such shockwaves across multiple industries, spanning social media, fashion, beauty and more.

Ferragni was an influencer at a time when the role was still gaining legitimacy. In 2016, four US Vogue editors criticised those who were suddenly arriving at Fashion Week’s front rows.