Killing the Instagame: Princess Polly
Seven years ago I spent half a year frolicking about in Australia. Part of that time I spent being roommates with my best friend since grade 8 and her 93 year old grandma in Brisbane (total sitcom set up). Brisbane is not the coolest city in that country by a long shot. I’d put it more akin to like a Calgary or an Edmonton as opposed to a Vancouver, Toronto, or a Montreal. One thing Brisbane does have though is this super cool boutique called Princess Polly.
Now pretty much every city has at least one cool boutique. But one of the things that I like about Princess Polly is their awesome Instagram account. I didn’t even get Instagram until like three or four years after the few times I’d visited this store. But I bought my favourite pair of shorts there and one day I decided to Google them to see if they had an online store. I started following their account and now some of my friends do too after I kept DMing them pics from it.
There are a couple things that I really like about this account. One is the consistency. They will photograph outfits of their merchandise in a consistent aesthetic. For me this mimics a good online store. The lighting is always bright and crisp, and puts all the focus on the clothes. In the descriptions, they give the names of all the items and refer you to the Instashop (link in bio) situation. It is all very thorough and yet simple. And because I’ve actually been to the physical store, I can attest that it is the same crisp, bright aesthetic they have in the shop too. The Instagram account really feels like you are there in person. For example:
Another thing I like about their account is the models. They have their own models that they use pretty consistently and they are all babes. Often if I really like one of the models, I’ll start following their accounts too. The lighting for the model shoots is usually similar to what you see in their product arrangements. Nice and bright and beautiful, just like Australia. I can’t really describe it but something about the beautiful girls in the cute outfits makes me think “Gawd, if I didn’t have to pay international shipping I could totally be just like one of these babes in the cute outfits”. It’s femme capitalist targeting at its finest. And then I lament that I never met a nice Aussie person to marry me so I could stay there and now it’s winter in Toronto and I’ll probably only get to wear one of my gajillion bathing suits like 4 four times this summer. But I digress…
I also like their inspo and throwback posts. Usually these consist of whoever the big beauty influencers/models of the moment are so the Jenners, the Hadids, the Selena Gomezs of the world, etc. But they also post other pics like a baby faced Leo or a Clueless meme. They even threw in a cute kitten shot this one time. And collectively I just like seeing this stuff. It is beautiful and frivolous and it just hits me right in the vain and materialistic part of my brain. And I love it. It’s just a visual buffet of things I like to look at: nice clothes, hot women, hot men, cute kittens, makeup, and occasionally the beach. So for that, Princess Polly’s Instagram account gets to be my #guiltypleasure.
