The Glossy 50 honors the year’s biggest changemakers across fashion and beauty. More from the series →
Wisdom Kaye – model, social media star and the “best-dressed guy on TikTok,” according to Vogue – made his Met Gala debut this year. His take on the “Garden of Time” concept — a striking ensemble by Robert Wun that emphasized decay and rot — reflected the signature creativity and extravagance of his styling.
Kaye was scouted by IMG Models out of college, making his runway debut in a Balmain show in 2020. Since then, he’s been a full-time content creator, posting fashion- and style-related videos to TikTok, where he reached 2 million followers by July 2020.
His recent posts include a series of looks inspired by 30 of the countries that participated in the Olympics and a series of looks inspired by characters from the popular animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” His Olympics looks were viewed more than 40 million times on his TikTok, where he now has 12.6 million followers.
“[The Olympics project] required a lot more research upfront than what I usually do,” Kaye said. “I took inspiration from the flags and from the culture of the countries I was representing.”
Kaye has taken part in paid partnerships with a wide variety of brands, including Ralph Lauren, Fendi, Calvin Klein and American Express. He’s also booked several high-profile gigs like co-hosting this year’s LVMH Prize ceremony and styling runway shows for eBay’s Pre-Loved Fashion Week, both in September.
Kaye’s social media content is known for its lavish production style. For example, his Olympics video, recorded on a stark white studio background to emphasize the vibrancy of the looks, features professional quality videography. But going forward, Kaye said, he wants to diversify the kind of content he makes by pulling back the curtain and becoming more comfortable with stripped-down videos.
“I want to diverge from the kind of cinematic stuff I do right now and be a bit more personal,” he said, noting that his hyper-polished videos require many hours of editing. But the prospect of showing more personal content on the internet is a daunting concept, he said. “The internet is a scary place sometimes. It’s important to build a connection with your audience. But the downside is that, sometimes, the people you don’t want to hear you, hear you.”
