Chiara Ferragni, fashion and digital brand-mom activism

Abstract

Chiara Ferragni is a renowned fashion influencer and transnational celebrity. After her hyper-celebrated marriage with Italian rapper Fedez and the creation of the international celebrity brand Ferragnez, Chiara Ferragni is now a full transmedia celebrity, with the docu-film Chiara Ferragni-Unposted (2019) and her participation in the 2023 Sanremo Festival, the main national popular television singing event in Italy. The aim of this article is to analyse Ferragni’s transmedia communication during her Sanremo appearances through her use of fashion as a communicative strategy to raise awareness of the complexity of maternal identity. My argument is that Chiara Ferragni’s maternal celebrity image is an example of what I label digital brand-mom activism: her maternal identity becomes part of the self-branding and is framed in the neo-liberal emphasis of individual choice and ‘have it all’ mentality popularized by Sheryl Sandberg and her Lean In manifesto. The maternal crisis is thus resolved in a generic and superficial exhortation to ‘be yourself’, without questioning the real reasons of the contemporary crisis of motherhood, related to persistent gender stereotypes and structural social impediments for working mothers.