The fashion influencer’s role in shaping the trends of today has grown since the emergence of TikTok and Instagram. But now, some influencers are taking that role one step further — what happens when a fashion influencer becomes a designer? Small Town Boys is the newest small batch clothing brand to hit the Toronto fashion scene, created by fashion influencer Rebecca-Jo Dunham-Baruchel (@youthin.asia) and multidisciplinary designer Rashelle Campbell (@rashelle.ca). With a focus on playful accessories, Small Town Boys represents a new wave of fashion that is simultaneously influenced by and influencing current trends.
The Small Town Boys Instagram account (@smalltownb0ys) has been teasing curious fashionistas with snaps of various accessories for weeks — including the early drop of “BS Blockerz,” colourful and fuzzy ear warmers adorned with charms to block out the every day BS (and keep you warm too). The sample size collection sold out quickly.
The funky brand officially launched its first collection of accessories on April 2 featuring the “lucky hat,” a colourful, adjustable ball cap adorned with streaks of goop and charms. Other pieces in the new collection include handmade bags created in collaboration with Brooklyn artist and seamstress Leila Plouffe.
The name Small Town Boys pays homage to the smaller Canadian cities the designers grew up in. Campbell was raised in Alberta and Dunham-Baruchel is from Ontario but has roots in Newfoundland.
Each piece in the collection nods to all three Canadian provinces and their unique cultures. The pair say the fabrics and styles in the collection reflect things they saw family members wearing growing up; country boy vibes sprinkled with the early 2000s hyper femme aesthetics that they loved as teens (and still love today).
“We loved the thought of taking pieces that our uncles were wearing and adding some sparkle & zing to them,” they say. “Why not be playful with it?”
Internet culture has also certainly played a role in the brand’s influences, since Dunham-Baruchel (whose husband is Canadian actor Jay Baruchel) has two feet, adorned by designer shoes, in the world of social media fashion influencing. Her platform — 100,000 Tiktok followers and 10,000 Instagram followers — offers the Small Town Boys brand an opportunity to make splashes in a world often dominated by micro-trends. Dunham-Baruchel hopes that their designs willl represent a new, more original face of fashion.
Ties and earmuffs decked out in charms and goop-covered baseball hats don’t exactly sound out of place when it comes to fashion on social media, where the ethos seems to be the weirder, the cooler. But coming from an emerging brand, it points to a new era of design that takes more liberties with the limits of traditional fashion and aims to move beyond the cyclical nature of trends.
In fact she’s confident that the brand has been influencing her content creation more than her content creation is influencing the brand. “Because we do everything ourselves, it’s really pushed me to focus more on creative direction and world building,” Dunham-Baruchel says. “I want my content to reflect my unique individuality more than pandering to algorithm trends (although some trends are really fun and I still love creating that content).”
As for how the dynamic duo came to be, the pair say they met online. As internet friends they would chat occasionally, until Campbell had a pop-up in Toronto and asked Dunham-Baruchel to hang out. Their first dinner turned into a whole evening and their subsequent lunch date turned into an entire day hang. “It was one of those connections that felt instant,” Dunham-Baruchel says.
A few months later, she flew to Edmonton to work on the first Small Town Boys drop.
“The energy that Rebecca and I have reminds me of when I was younger and obsessed with a friend and all we did was play Barbies or play dress up,” says Campbell.
When it comes to inspiration, Dunham-Baruchel and Campbell say they pretty much base their collections off the colour of their mood rings and their astrology signs (Scorpio and Cancer respectively). “We create based on our moods and feelings at that moment so we can’t promise that you will see pieces from earlier collections re-appear.”
It’s a statement that makes sense coming from this new era of influencer-designers — in a world of fashion content that styles outfits based on everything from Taylor Swift songs to the so-called weird girl aesthetic, mood rings and astrology signs fit right in.