Why The Brand Ambassador Game Is More Competitive Than Ever

When Zendaya attended the Louis Vuitton spring/summer 2025 show on the last day of Paris Fashion Week, it was a major get. The actor, an official brand ambassador since April 2023, has only appeared at two other shows since being announced as part of Nicolas Ghesquière’s galaxy of superstar muses – one of the sightings being Pharrell Williams’s June 2023 debut.

The fashion pocket of the internet remains mesmerised by her partnership with the label, given how often she wears other designers and how her attendance at the shows is never guaranteed. She’s no Harry Styles, for instance, who has long shown up to support Alessandro Michele when he was designing for Gucci and reappeared again at his debut show for Valentino this season. What’s all the more curious is that Styles, unlike Zendaya, is the one without the contract – that we know of, and at least for now.

It speaks to the nuances between a brand ambassador and a brand muse. While the terms are often used interchangeably, they mean different things and the roles don’t often intersect. One is official and marketed, the other ambiguous and more personal. Yet celebrities and their images continue to be the key bridge between a label, pop culture and its audience, and as they wield even more influence and weight in the social-media era, competition to recruit the right celebrities to your camp, on contract or not, is reaching new heights.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

When it comes to people like Styles and Zendaya – individuals whose style is key as to why the public is invested in them as a personality – what they wear, and whether or not they’re paid to wear it, matters. By following trade news, tabloid gossip and industry chatter on X, Instagram or TikTok, audiences are able to have an idea of who is friends with whom, who gets paid to wear something or go somewhere and who doesn’t. The role of an ambassador seems straightforward enough, as contractual pay-to-play, but that of the muse is a bit more ambiguous. Timothée Chalamet and Tilda Swinton, two close friends of Haider Ackermann, have worn his work for both Berluti and his own label, supported his guest designer role at Jean Paul Gaultier, and are likely to follow the designer to Tom Ford. The muse is authentic, and it inspires the audience in a different way: “If this person I admire is inspired by this designer then I should be, too.”

Where this actually plays out is first and foremost on social media. The initial frontier for virality is the celebrity contingent at a show. This is a key element of engagement as it pertains not only to brands, but the content economy around a brand and its show – magazines, influencers, editors and more bank on celebrity content for engagement. (I’ve done this myself by filming Rihanna, Beyoncé and Madonna sitting front row.) Engagement is of course a key factor in determining the success of a runway show, and while in the past, the way in which this success would transfer to sales was more nebulous, labels have now refocused the strategy to promote in-season product. It’s no longer about attendance, but about filling the front row with pieces the audience can buy. Who brands can get to fill those seats and wear that product is only growing in significance.

Brands used to focus their marketing efforts on only a handful of megastars, yet that much has changed with the internet. Last season at Chemena Kamali’s Chloé debut, an image of the front row featured the likes of Sienna Miller – an OG Chloé girl – plus a gaggle of celebrity guests all sporting the same pair of clogs. That idea was replicated this season by labels such as Tory Burch – her popular Pierced flats were on full display – with brands progressively working harder to pack their front rows with celebrity camps rather than a single megawatt star. (See also: Loewe, Balenciaga and Miu Miu.)

Ten or so lesser celebrities can now equal a superstar, because it’s not only about engagement but product, too. With a front row as real estate, as opposed to a single ambassador in a custom look, brands have more opportunity to promote specific pieces, which is why the ambassador game is more competitive than ever. Labels are asking talent for exclusive appearances, negotiating campaigns and awards show dressing in exchange for their presence at shows, and other back-end deals. They want their talent to simply wear their brand, not promote an abundance of them.

Remember when, earlier this year, Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe men’s show in January went viral for featuring every “internet boyfriend” on its front row? Such is the name of the game now. What’s particularly interesting – and successful – about Anderson and Loewe, however, is that he seems to establish close relationships with his ambassadors, or he fashions ambassadors out of his close talent friendships. Josh O’Connor or Greta Lee, for instance, are Loewe ambassadors, in addition to their personal relationships with Anderson. At a time when the internet is obsessively dissecting celebrity relationships, and when the star power behind a designer is covetable brand equity, this makes a difference. Muses also propose an editorialised ideal of the label, and rather than underscoring a fashion brand, they highlight a designer’s point of view. This is an ideal scenario for designers like Ackermann or Michele, who are known auteurs.

Timothée Chalamet arriving at the Jean-Paul Gaultier show during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week in January 2023. Photo: Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images

Still, it’s worth saying that the general public is not often as clued into the nuances of these relationships, but in the case of, say, Chalamet and Styles, their friendships with Ackermann and Michele, respectively, are well documented, and in a way fuel the star power behind the designers themselves. That these muses are happy to follow their designer friends to the labels they work at endears the celebrity’s audiences. It, once more, fuels those elusive feelings of authenticity and community that labels often chase but rarely get right. After all, how successful labels – and their runway shows – are today also hinges on how viral they go, which hinges on not just the fashion but on the guests: how surprising they can be (Lindsay Lohan at Balenciaga SS25), or how endearing their attendance is in relationship to the brand or designer (Styles at Valentino or Queer star Daniel Craig at Loewe).

As per formal ambassadors, very rarely do these figures transcend the role of poster person. Louis Vuitton has navigated this exceptionally well, leveraging Ghesquière’s friendships with stars like Jennifer Connelly, Sophie Turner and Emma Stone to create muses as ambassadors. Women who will both highlight the label and emphasise his own signature vision. Yet, while Zendaya does not seem to have a personal relationship with the designer, her sartorial presence has made her the ideal ambassador, first for Valentino and now for Louis Vuitton. The public loves her, and loves the way she dresses. Her co-sign is covetable from a brand perspective, but her partnership with one of the most well-known luxury labels only fuels her own personal brand, too. The relationship is more transactional here, though proves that when it comes to the ambassador-versus-muse game, the difference only really matters if the ambassador does not make a believable sale.

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This article was originally published on British Vogue.

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