In the Instagram era, one diligent chronicler of male celebrity fashion decides what guys are going to wear—one picture of Scott Disick at a time.
Sitting at the bar of The Breslin, the restaurant tucked into New York's Ace Hotel, is an old man wearing glasses, a turtleneck, and, improbably, a pair of fashionable Valentino sneakers, camouflage with neon-pink splotches. "Even this guy right here," Allen Onyia, the co-founder of UpscaleHype, a website and Instagram account that catalogs what stylish celebrities wear, says. He gestures at the man at the bar. "When I see these guys on the street I'm like, 'I wonder, was this a product of UpscaleHype in someway? Was it influenced by UpscaleHype? Is it someone from the tree of UpscaleHype?'"
The subject in question looks like he probably wouldn't be able to log into Instagram without the help of some very patient grandchildren, but Allen's suspicion, if a bit overblown, isn't entirely off-base. Thanks to an encyclopedic knowledge of men's clothing, a spidey sense for what's trending, and the fortune of operating at a moment when men are taking fashion cues from social media more than anywhere else, Allen might have created the single most influential Instagram account in menswear.
Much of UpscaleHype's appeal lies in the sometimes-florid language it uses to describe, say, celebrity spawn Patrick Schwarzenegger's whereabouts and outfit. And once you glance through a half-dozen Upscale posts, it's impossible not to run the same outfit scan on every well-dressed dude you see. When I meet Allen, for example, I discover that he's wearing a Hedi Slimane-era Saint Laurent jacket with a rocket ship made out of sequins on the back and, on the day Virgil Abloh was named Louis Vuitton's men's designer, socks from the designer's Off-White brand. He has a beard that could go one-on-one with James Harden's. Of course, Allen would give it the full UpscaleHype treatment:
@AllenOnyia showed up to his @GQ interview in #NYC wearing a @YSL camo jacket with sequins, a purple acid-wash @doublet denim jacket, brown @Balenciaga pants, pink @Nike sneakers, and @off____white socks. #upscalehype
Allen, 33, started UpscaleHype in 2008 with his younger brother Kyle, 31, who's piped into our meeting by speakerphone. Growing up watching award shows and music videos, Allen was always curious about what his favorite celebrities wore. But he cared less about the red carpet and camera-ready outfits—meticulously planned and stylist-engineered—than about what celebrities were wearing in their day-to-day lives. "Because day-to-day is their true self," Allen explains.
The brothers, who grew up and live in Houston, noticed that there were plenty of blogs hunting down exactly what women were wearing, and blasting that info out to their followers. But for men "there was this big void in the market," says Allen. Kyle, meanwhile, wanted to start a luxury lifestyle blog—until, a week into the project, Allen decided to aim their then-tiny spotlight at well-dressed dudes. After that epiphany, "We hit the ground running and from that day that became UpscaleHype," says Allen. It started as a website, but today, most of the brothers' effort goes into the Instagram.
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Since then, anywhere from six to twenty times a day, UpscaleHype has been diligently documenting what's worn by stylish and famous men—celebrities like Kanye West and Justin Bieber, but also professional Instagram types like Anwar Hadid. There is something delightfully nutty about UpscaleHype's devotion to posting celebrities and their outfits: the Onyias assume that if you're interested in knowing what Russell Westbrook wore pre-game or how Jared Leto dressed for the red carpet, you'd like to know what celebrities wear at their most vulnerable, too. Only on UpscaleHype do sentences that start "Pharrell attends Chris Cornell's funeral with son and wife" eventually end with "wearing Brooklyn Machine Works hoodie and Adidas x Pharrell NMD Hu sneakers." Other notables include a handcuffed Conor McGregorgetting escorted out of jail, or Kanye West arriving on the scene of "Kris Jenner's car crash." All the posts plainly lay out the celebrity, the location—from red carpet walk to perp walk—and what they're wearing. If, god forbid, a well-dressed male celebrity died tomorrow, I would expect UpscaleHype to dutifully catalog what he was wearing in the casket. #RIP.
Kanye is the obvious name that Kyle and Allen bring up when I ask who's in the UpscaleHype Hall of Fame. Other guys they keep on their radar include Pharrell, McGregor, Scott Disick, A$AP Rocky, Justin Bieber, and David Beckham. "It's the guys who are always pushing: pushing their art, pushing their style," says Allen. "People others look to see because they're always changing." (These are also men, it should be noted, with massive fan bases.) And the celebrities that move the needle for UpscaleHype are perfect fits for a fashion moment when streetwear is king. It's a clever cycle: celebrities are the ones with the connections and checking account to acquire the items that are perpetually sold out for the rest of us—and their wearing that gear on UpscaleHype makes those items even more desirable.
And while Allen's professed interest is in a celebrity's "day-to-day" life, it's impossible to ignore that, in the age of Instagram, a celebrity's day-to-day life is deeply mediated, and often just as professionally styled as a red-carpet appearance. This is thanks in no small part to accounts like the Onyias', which pick up the "what Scott Disick wore to the grocery store" torch from supermarket tabloids—and sprint ahead with it.
There's not much to UpscaleHype's no-frills approach, but the account is a true difference-maker for those it chooses to post. UpscaleHype has almost 300,000 followers, which isn't terribly impressive for Instagram, but enough UpscaleHype posts can turn a celebrity or a brand into a real Insta-force. And that's according to the brands and stylists whose work appears on the account.
3x1 founder Scott Morrison says the benefits of UpscaleHype posting "Justin Theroux hugs Paul Rudd and his wife" in a pair of the brand's jeans are more abstract than a direct sales bump. "There is certainly value in both men and women seeing 3x1 tagged on people they know, whether it be a celebrity or a friend, or a curator like UpscaleHype." But other designers are more effusive with their praise for the account. "When Lebron [James] gets posted in a fit that is tagged with one of our products, or, even better, two of our products, it not only spikes [e-commerce] traffic but can also directly affects sales," says John Elliott, whose Escobar sweatpants and Villain hoodies make frequent appearances on the account. "I know it has a huge effect." Elliott even credits UpscaleHype with boosting his brand. "I would be absolutely incorrect if I said that Allen has not been hugely influential in getting our name and the way to wear the brand out there."
Allen and Kyle aren't modest about taking credit for brands they helped put on the map, either. "Sometimes we'll hear directly from brands, 'Yeah, you helped springboard my brand,'" says Kyle. "Fear of God, John Elliott. Those are guys we without question can confirm." Allen adds Amiri ("I thank them for their constant support of Amiri," the brand's designer Mike Amiri said in an email). Kyle keeps going: "Christian Louboutin reached out to us, Dior reached out to us, Hermès reached out to us."
Stylists are similarly eager to get their clients on UpscaleHype. "[Getting posted] adds to their street cred," says David Thomas, who dresses John Legend and Calvin Harris. "It's a validation that they are cool and current and fashion relevant." What's powerful about UpscaleHype, designers and stylists say, is that it won't post just anything: the feed has a point of view. "His taste level is very high," Elliott says of Allen. So when UpscaleHype posts something it can feel like an anointment. "UpscaleHype has the following that's powerful enough to help position anyone to be an influencer," says Future's stylist Bobby Wesley. (Wesley says that he's messaged UpscaleHype looks of Future in the past with hopes of getting it posted.)
That a stylists like Wesley is looking to UpscaleHype to post pictures of Future, who has almost 12 million more Instagram followers, says a lot about how the account's place in the fashion ecosystem. Sure, Future can post pictures of himself on Instagram—but a post on UpscaleHype means that the rapper's outfit was worthy of dissection. "There's a difference between you putting it up and someone doing it organically," says Allen.
The work is all-consuming. While we ate, Allen was DMing with John Mayer, trying to get confirmation of something the singer had worn. Mayer, for his part, was happy to write back and provide outfit creds. Allen says that most of the work pinpointing what celebrities are wearing comes from his own knack for identifying different brands and pieces, although sometimes he relies on emails from publicists—or the occasional DM with Mayer. Allen's talent is what makes the account possible but even he isn't all-knowing. One unidentifiable outfit still haunts the brothers: a souvenir jacket Kanye wore in a Francis and the Lights music video. (It was eventually ID'd as "a rare and vintage" jacket).
Only in 2018 could a celebrity style aggregation platform—even one with such reputed good taste as UpscaleHype—have so many real-world ramifications. UpscaleHype's clout has also opened up other opportunities for its founders. "All this has come through the foundation of UpscaleHype," says Allen. The site makes money off of website ads and the occasional sponsored Instagram post—for brands, not individuals, Kyle says—and Allen's used the account's popularity to bag styling gigs. He also launched his own clothing line, Wanderluste— which, conveniently, has a ready-made audience in Allen's Rolodex of stylist friends and celebrities. Allen will seed #influencers with Wanderluste—and then post pictures of them wearing it on UpscaleHype. It's a vertically-integrated hypebeast factory, with manufacturing, distribution, and publicity arms.
The cataloging of famous-guys jawnz, though, is the brothers' top priority, they say. It's what makes all the other projects work. And the account is more important than ever, since Instagram is the official platform of the influencers. "Instagram for fashion is king," says Kyle. Which makes sense: Instagram is a highly visual medium where users can thumb through hundreds of pictures in the span of a couple minutes. It's a completely frictionless way for guys to pick up on fashion trends, hot brands, and stylish celebrities.
The downside is that all this information tends to average out in users' minds and spit out roughly the same ideas about trends and outfits. "Before it was like, everyone in your city or everybody around you dressed alike," says Allen. "Now because of Instagram it's global. I feel like the whole world is dressing the same." The world is dressing more like the Kanyes, Biebers, and Disicks who appear constantly on UpscaleHype.
Allen says that he has a "love and hate relationship" with Instagram. On one hand, anyone can go onto the platform and be exposed to a huge swath of different styles and ideas. "On Instagram, the barrier of entry has been reduced," says Kyle. In the early days of Instagram, there was optimism around the platform: that it would allow multiple different ideas about style to flourish simultaneously and anyone could easily find their own niche in the platform's infinite space.
But in reality what's largely happened is that users have taken Instagram and used it replicate what others are doing. In fact, after scrolling past a picture of Kanye on UpscaleHype it's possible a user might bump into one of the many Instagram brands ripping that style off and selling it directly on the platform. "[On Instagram,] you can get the Kanye-inspired look. You can see the A$AP and Pharrell-inspired look," says Kyle. "Now people can [say], 'I can pull particular looks from them or I can copy this look exactly. You're seeing how people are seeing the same looks." The cycle creates carbon copies: guys who are force-fed the same trend until it flames out. "Everything gets pushed really hard and then it falls flat," Allen says. He adds, unhappily: "Naturally, people follow." And now that an entire breed of Instagram-based fashion brand has cropped up to serve them, they never have to leave the app to get their fix.
And while the Onyias gripe about the loss of individual style, this is just how celebrity works in 2018. At one point, men gawked at the planned-down-to-the-cufflink tuxedos that made their way down the runway—famous guys were famous, and regular guys were regular. But Instagram has made it possible to easily follow celebrities wherever they've chosen to roll out the red carpet that day. This sort of celebrity-stalker coverage was once confined to the Us Weeklys of the world, but UpscaleHype's found a way to service our obsession with celebrities—their vacations, relationships, drama, and extravagant lifestyles—and condense it into an outfit-centric format that gets guys to buy in. Stars are just like us, it turns out—and if you buy the right bomber jacket, you can be just like them, too.
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