A missing necklace and an influencer witch-hunt

0:09This is Stylish, the podcast for all things fashion, beauty, brand and lifestyle. My name is Madison Sullivan Thorpe. Today my co-hosts are Joanna Fleming and Rhiannon Joyce. Ladies, how are we? We are good. Happy Wednesday. Jo, you're back from vacay. I am. Oh my God, yes. It was nice to get away for the week. You look great. Enjoy some sunsafe outfits. Noted on TikTok. I love the video that you guys did. That was so funny. I feel like if you haven't seen this video, go over to Jo and Adrian's socials because it made me cackle like a witch. It was his idea. He saw the white chick's audio of when she's on the beach.

0:49And, yeah, he was like, we've got to do this on TikTok. So I was like, all right. It was perfect. And your lip syncing was bang on. Very impressed. Yeah, I did that in one go as well. Oh, here she is. That's very impressive because Ray and I have tried to lip sync many TikToks and Ray's like, for God's sake, on the beat. It's hard. It's really hard. To be fair, usually when we do it, we've had like three or four champs. I was so bad. Yeah, it's like, and I have to count Mads in. I'm like, one, two, three, four. Full dance, mum. I know. Oh, my God. I love that. Well, Arnica's still gallivanting around Europe.

1:26So thanks for being with us again, Rhi. Happy to be here. Appreciate you keeping her seat warm. Happy to be here, guys. Now I have to ask you both. I mean, how could we have missed it? But I'm hoping you've both seen the Skims pube underwear. Oh, my God. How could I not have seen that? I think this is Ragebait 101. Like we were going to make this a headline and then we were like, no, no, because obviously we've all seen it. We've all read about it. And I was chatting about it with my two stepsisters over lunch on Saturday. And one of them was like, how would she think anyone would want to buy that?

1:58And I was like, I'm going to deepen this a little. On their website, they're available or they're sold out now, or so they say. They're not on a singular stockist website and nor are the infamous nipple bras that launched recently either. So my analysis of this is I don't think they're making that many of them or that they're stocking them with anyone. This is purely like a media play to get attention. You are so bang on. Yeah I really like that take but also how do you sell in a pube g-string to a supplier? Like how do you sell that into David Jones. It could also, you know. It could also be that, Jo.

2:37Hear me out. Merkins. How do you sell that in, you know? Do you know what? It might be an instance of a Rhiannon Joy special of two things can be true. No one wants it and they're after the media attention. They know exactly what they're doing. You're going on. So they do not get a headline from us. They just get the 60 second mention. We're still talking about it, but only just a little. Just a little. It's like a little snack size. Quick, Jo, move on. Anyway, moving on. All right. Today we are talking about the return of King Kylie and Kylie Cosmetics staying in the Karjennas, the debut of Sophia Ritchie Granger's fashion line and what it tells us about where fashion is at right now and the Luna Ray necklace saga that's been playing out on TikTok.

3:17But first, what do we each want to swap in this week, Mads? I feel like yours is Kardashian-themed. So we said we weren't going to give them airtime today. We lied. No, no, just the Merkin we're not giving airtime. No, we're not giving the Merkin airtime. Is that the formal term? No, when I looked it up, it's called the pube g-string or something. The pube g-string. Pube is aggressive. Kate, our senior producer is in the room with us. Can you please just Google if it is the pube g-string? I'm pretty sure when I was on their site it didn't come up for pubes, but when I typed pube it came up after singular.

3:46I just love how you emphasise pubes. She goes hard on the P, doesn't she? Really hard on the P. Kate's ready to confirm. Please hold. Faux hair micro-string thong. Faux hair micro-string thong. I like pubes. Yeah. I think if you do type in Pube in the search, Pube must be Summer in the SEO. Look, no, I'm not sponsored by Kris Jenner, but my swap for this week is the Kim Kardashian interview with Alex Cooper for Call Her Daddy. Now, I'm not recommending this interview for the reasons you might think. Yes, Kim comes off very intelligent. It's clear that she's like a very devoted mum, all of those things.

4:22Yep, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. What I kept thinking about the episode was she didn't really give me any information about her that I didn't already know. Right. or that I hadn't had in another context, which is interesting because I think Alex Cooper and Call Her Daddy are renowned for kind of getting the most out of people. And somehow she still felt vulnerable. Anyway, there's a TikTok account by the name of Saab. Saab uploaded this TikTok being like, that interview is a masterclass in deflection. And I just loved it because what Kim did is something I've been trying to illustrate at the moment.

4:55I was chatting to Rhea about this at a wine bar on Friday. But basically when you're asked something by someone and you don't want to answer it because it feels invasive or you're like, I feel like you're fishing for that information about me, not because you want to get to know me. Anyway, if you're also struggling with that, my swap is to go and listen to that interview. Do you have an example from the interview, like when she was asked a question? Because I haven't listened to it. I think a really great example was when she said, what's it like co-parenting with Kanye West, to which she said, what do you think it's like co-parenting with Kanye West?

5:25love. Didn't answer it, but kind of like did in the most roundabout way. It was just amazing at deflecting it back. So you as the audience and listener kind of come up with your own interpretation. Yeah. Well, your assumption is the answer. Yes. Oh, I like that. Yeah. So that's my spot. Brie, what about you? Not a sexy spot for me today, guys, but I cannot tell you how many people told me I had to get on the mic and recommend what I'm about to recommend. Today, And to be honest, all the podiatrists who listen to Stylish, there might be a few of you. I'm really sorry in advance. But I'm recommending toe veneers.

6:00I'm sorry, what? Toe veneers. I made this term up. Wait, is this post-marathon? Post-marathon. And guys, don't worry. The marathon chat is soon to be over. I've got to sneak one more thing in. My toes look fabulous. And that is because I... Do you want me to take my shoe off? No, I can't take the other one off. It's broken. Oh, is that a toe veneer? That is a toe veneer. I've got my feet out in the studio, people. I just want to also preface this. It looks pretty good. This is the second time in like 48 hours I've seen your toes. Well, that's weird. Wait, what do you mean? You got them out on Friday at Elberts.

6:36Oh, my God. Sorry. In the context of showing off my veneers. Yes. Okay. Yes. This is the second time. I also took my shoes off in the office to show the team because I was so impressed with how well they came out. So for those of you who don't run, what happens if you start to run long distances over time is that it can damage your toenails and eventually your toenails fall off, which is so gross and I'm so sorry. But that is the harsh reality of running. I had two toenails fall off. My two biggies fell off. And was that immediately post marathon? No. So I lost them like halfway through the training and I just had to commit to not getting them fixed until after the marathon because I was like, they're just going to keep getting damaged.

7:11Does that not signify that maybe long distance running is like not good for you? I think it just happens. Like it's a combination of things. One, it can be your shoes. Okay, I'm going up to tangent now. I'm cutting myself off. I'm cutting myself off on the tangent. No, let's focus on the veneers. Okay. Let's focus on the veneers because my feet look so bad and I was thinking, okay, post-marathon, it's like a reward. I'm going to get my pedicure done. It's like a reward. It's like a reward. Right. Post-marrow pedicure, right? Anyway, so I do have somewhat of a nail and I think this is important.

7:46You need this because they have to stick the acrylic nail onto something so that you have to have some little stubby nail going on, right? Okay. So I did and I went in and I thought, fuck, this is going to be hard work for them. I was there for an extra 30 minutes and my Lord, it was worth it guys, because my toes look pretty good and I can wear open toe shoes. Now, I couldn't wear open toe shoes for a few months. So my recommendation is that if your toes are fucked, like mine are, you pop into your salon and you get the toe veneers because dolls - Is that what you asked for? You said - No, I made that name up.

8:17I actually am full upfront transparent. I say, look, my toes aren't great. I've lost my two big toenails and I need some fakies on them. They'd be used to it, I reckon. I think they've seen some shit there. Yeah, prosthetic toenails. That's literally what it is. So it's basically a fake toenail. And it just has really helped with my confidence. Do they have to like shape it? Yes, so they shape it. It's think about like when you're getting your nails done, they do the same thing where they put like the gel on top of it and then they mold it out and then they kind of file it down. Look, one of them isn't as good as the other, but I take the W.

8:53I'm coming into summer, like there's not a world. And truthfully, when I went to Brisbane a few weeks ago, I was walking around with closed toe shoes. It was like 32 degrees but I couldn't get my toes out so I had to quickly like take them off before I'd get in the water because my feet look so bad so I just want to avoid that in summer so I'm really happy so if you're like me and you have issues with your toenails go and get the fakies get the toe veneers enjoy your summer at this point I just want to play who let the dogs out like can we just cut that into this air do you know what it is it's a hot toe summer yes get around it guys we did debate because I told Ray it should have been called a toe toupee because I love the vibration I like the veneers.

9:31I like the toe veneer. Yes. I like that. Yeah. God. All right. Bring us home strong. Please don't be feet related. It's not feet related. Beautiful. It is sun safety related. I thought I would give a very helpful recommendation for those that are males that are listening and want some way to protect themselves while they are enjoying the beach or the pool. So my brother actually started this trend amongst my like family and extended friends because he was one day wearing this, like what looked like a t-shirt in the pool with my nephew and Adrian saw it and he was like, oh, is that a rashie? And it was like a rip curl rashie, but it just looked like a plain t-shirt.

10:11Like it kind of looked cool. And so we ended up finding that there's these body glove ones you can get from Anaconda that are actually quite affordable. I think they're like$40. They come in like a short sleeve and a long sleeve version. There's no like funnel neck or anything. So it just looks like a t-shirt, but it's UPF 50 plus. so it's protective as well. So if you have a man in your life and they are not obeying you and your sun safety orders, maybe get them a rashy that they can wear to the beach and the pool and then they're only needing to really worry about their neck and their face and their arms.

10:42That's a great idea. Love that. Good Christmas gift coming up. Yeah, that's a great Christmas gift. Adrian's got four of them, I think, at home and he just rotates through them when we're on holidays. Of course he does. I have no doubt that that man has that many of those because I would hate to live in your household and not have at least three on that. Okay, now that my sun safety messaging is out, I managed to get that into the episode. Next, we are unpacking the case of the missing Luna Ray necklace and the influencer witch hunt it provoked, but that will be right after a word from today's sponsor.

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12:19All right, our first headline of the day is the case of the missing Luna Ray necklace. Now, you've likely seen this saga around the missing necklace on your feeds over the last week or so. Maybe not so much if you're not on TikTok. If you're not on TikTok, you might have no fucking idea what we're talking about. But I definitely saw this unfolding. So to give you a quick overview, if you're not on TikTok, Amy Bradley, the co-founder of Australian jewellery brand Luna Ray shared a video accusing an unnamed influencer of stealing a$360 necklace. So allegedly an influencer purchased a necklace through the brand's Shopify, but after the brand sent the product to them, the influencer claimed they never received the product and they processed a chargeback through their credit card company.

13:02So then they get a notification from Shopify that a chargeback has been requested and they're like, hang on a second, we can see that this has been delivered and they should have received it. And so they explained in this TikTok that they went and found this influencer and their social profiles and they saw the$360 necklace being worn. And so that's where this controversy has come from because then Luna Ray, the founder, Amy Bradley, has jumped on and spoken about this situation and explained the charge back and that they've basically caught this influencer stealing from them. And I use inverted commas, air commas but it sparked this huge backlash online of everyone in the comments now coming at the brand coming at influencers tagging influencers being like it has to be this person it has to be that person because they did say in this TikTok they've been on reality tv so that then kind of narrows the funnel a little bit as to who this person could be without them having to name them.

14:04So it's created this huge kind of storm on socials. So a day after posting the video, Amy made a follow-up video and she said, it's getting a little bit out of control though, because people are now tagging influencers that they think it is. People are getting really crazy about it and people are like, they want blood. It's really full on. And I very much appreciate the support of a small brand. I really do. But we can't tag influencers who have nothing to do with this. Like none of these people are this person. She said the reason they didn't want to name and shame the influencer is because she wasn't sure the public would be respectful and kind to them and that she's now downloaded the videos where she can be seen wearing the necklace and is going to give them an opportunity to pay for the item.

14:41But either way, she said she's going to be reporting them to the police. So what do you think about brands posting these type of videos? Because in this follow-up, Amy has said they didn't expect it to go viral. They didn't expect it to get this reception from their audience or, you know, the general audience on TikTok. Rhi, I can see your brain ticking over, so I want to throw to you first. I take an issue with these types of videos on social media, particularly TikTok, and I find it difficult to believe that someone wouldn't post this without considering, and perhaps it wasn't their intention, but I think it would be remiss of anyone to post these types of videos and not consider that there would be negative backlash or that it could result in a swarm in the comments section.

15:24We have seen this happen time and time again. This business owner is obviously active on TikTok. They're posting on their own commercial page. She's likely come across other videos similar to the video that she created and saw the swarm of commentary, both negative and positive, that it can generate. I find it very difficult to believe that she didn't at least consider that that would be something that could happen. I agree with you there. I'm so with you, Rae. This is not the first time we've seen this type of content. We see it with waitresses going, I had someone really rooted a restaurant.

15:53You see it from like restaurants in New York where you'd know it'd be an A-lister and the comment sections are just always swarmed with accusations or guesses as to who it was. In the follow-up video she did say that they realised that the credit card that paid for the item was a company credit card and they've since apparently been in touch with the company and it's very interesting. Like that's what she said in the follow-up video that it's a very interesting situation they're still kind of to figure it out. One thing I will say is I do think she created the video for it to blow up and potentially be something that generated the story.

16:30I don't think her intention was for it to get nasty and for random influences to be brought into the conversation. However, one thing that I believe is that if it's your video, it's your comment section, you're accountable for that. So when people are incorrectly naming other influences who it's not or having an absolute shitstorm in your comments, ripping on random people. It feels really, it feels negligent, to be honest, that you're allowing that conversation to play out. And you're also allowing people to defame other people in your comments section. Yeah, it festers hate and it festers accusatory behavior for people who have nothing to do with it.

17:10And it really goes back to that tall poppy thing. A lot of people don't like the influencing space. Any chance to kind of neg on them or to kind of assume that they've done something wrong and to like encourage their downfall. Yeah. Clearly elicits response. I think it's fair game if they had reached out, they had tried multiple times to email and call and get in touch and had been flat out ignored or they were trying to deny, the influencer was trying to deny what they'd done. I think fair game to then talk about it, not necessarily name them, but fair game to bring it up and bring it to socials because you've already tried to resolve it privately.

17:46I think fair game. That's just my personal opinion. But I don't believe that that has been the case because that's not something that they mentioned. I also think there are other avenues you can pursue to try and get follow up on this. You can contact Consumer Affairs. You can, you know, pursue this in a legal capacity if you wanted to. I just think the decision to take it online, it just feels a bit icky to me. Yeah. It's been taken as a PR op. Yes. Yeah. And I also don't want to take away though from the fact that this brand owner has bought this product, sold it to someone and then inevitably had to provide them for a refund on a product they did receive.

18:22Like I don't want to take away from that. I just don't know that the shaming is necessary when it's like unnamed. It feels a little bit keyboard warrior. It's a witch hunt. I've seen a couple of videos of influencers that have had to create content being like, I don't know what you're talking about with this necklace it's not me but I also then was like hang on a second if no one's been able to find this person and these videos exist did this happen yes I started getting in my head about it oh my god wait if no one has been able to sleuth hard enough to find this necklace on someone and the videos exist and we've got the information that they are a reality tv star how is no one on tiktok with the virality of this found this influence oh my god I didn't even Full inception, Jo.

19:07I went all detective. I guess to challenge ourselves because I feel like we're all kind of thinking the same thing here, her top three pinned videos have less than 100 ,000 views. Yeah. So there is every chance that she uploaded this, maybe anticipating some conversational chatter, but not thinking that it would gain the virality and traction that it did. Yeah, that video has 3 million views. Yeah, that's a lot. Maybe she thought, oh, I might get like 10 ,000 views on this, but not 3 million. And the comment section that we're seeing is, you know, there's commentary to, you know, both influencer accusations, but also a lot of people in the camp of like, hey, don't love this from you, don't want to support you or your brand.

19:47Which is obviously not what she wants either. No one wants to sit there and see, you know, their integrity be attacked and also their brand potentially be impacted by that. And again, I think it comes back to the point. I don't think it was her intention for this video to hit the side of TikTok it has. No. But we can pull it down. And I just don't think that anyone is winning in this piece of paper. content. I don't think the brand has won. And clearly the influence is being accused or the guilty influencer has not won. And like she still doesn't have a resolution to the issue that was first at hand.

20:16Yeah. I want to talk about the influence it's actually had on the creators, though. What do you guys think about that? Do you think it's fair that they've come out to defend themselves? Yeah, I do think it's fair. Yeah. But I think it's fair for them to defend themselves. I think it's unfair that they've had to. Does that make sense? Absolutely. It's also don't underestimate the mental burden to feel like people are also questioning your integrity as a person. Accusing someone of stealing is a pretty big accusation, I would say. And to not be able to defend yourself or feel like you have to defend yourself in the public domain and people allowing, again, coming back to my point around the comments section, I think the fact that that was allowed to be fueled and become a bit of a cesspit was really disappointing.

20:54If you're a business account or if you're an individual, even if this happened in my own comments section, you're responsible for monitoring and moderating your comments section to avoid people's names being shamed and for these influencers then having to come out and reply to comments or make actual full-length videos saying that didn't happen I didn't do that yeah also you can turn the comments off exactly and also these are only the comments we're seeing we have no idea what's going on in the private dms of these poor creators so true as well true any of your group chats divided like are you guys having this conversation with anyone else yeah I would say it was really divided in my friendship group, a lot of people gave her the benefit of the doubt and genuinely believed that it was an honest mistake and she was making the video more so to come from the perspective of a small business owner looking for other advice and support from other small business owners who perhaps had had the same experience and that, you know, she didn't think it would blow up in the way that it did.

21:48I can see that perspective, but I still come back to the point that regardless if that your intention wasn't for that to happen, you still have a responsibility on bringing the conversation back to what it was or trying to shut the conversation down. And I don't think that happened. Yeah. You know, it's pretty wild, though. I would like to think I'm chronically online. I had not been served this drama at all. Really? I'm like really stuck on the, and I wake up in the morning. That's clearly the side of TikTok I'm on. That's a good side to be on. Yeah. Next, we're going to discuss the return of King Kylie and Kylie Cosmetics, but that will be right after a word from today's sponsor.

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23:02And thank you so much to Sodhi for making this episode of Stylish possible. All right, you might have seen on social media last week that King Kylie is back. And for anyone not familiar, King Kylie was a nickname Kylie had from 2014 to 2016. and it was very heavily associated with the launch of her makeup brand Kylie Cosmetics. I don't know about you guys but I felt like I was thrown back into a time machine of Tumblr times. I loved it. The King Kylie era was really of that time when Kylie was leaning into that big strong bold like makeup beat aesthetic. Yeah the block brow. Dipped blue hair like 42 Cartier love bracelets on a hand.

23:42You guys know what I'm talking about. So to celebrate Kylie Cosmetics' 10th anniversary last week, Kylie teased out and then eventually released the King Kylie Collection, a range of glosses, the OG lip kits. We had eye palettes inspired by her hair colours. She revived her 2010s persona by releasing a video and a song. The song Four Strikes was made in collaboration with pop duo Tara Jr. and is a throwback to 2016 when she released a wildly popular commercial for Kylie Cosmetics that featured the song Three Strikes by Tara Jr., which fans theorised Kylie was singing. Do you guys remember the original film?

24:22Convertible top down. It's like a robbery set up. Yeah. So this is the continuation of that film clip. This is her getting out of jail. So in the video, she's very much tapping into the nostalgia clearly and marketing it by continuing that story and peppering it with that 2016 aesthetic that feels so ingrained in really all of our brains. Have you felt like you have been seeing much from Kylie Cosmetics before this? Zero. Yeah. Very quiet on the campaign front. I even saw her change her display pic. Yeah. So that made me think, okay, they're really trying to lean heavily into reviving this brand in a big way.