Lara Piras is a copywriter, researcher, and brand strategist. Lara's expertise lies in creative copywriting, editing, trend and insight analysis and strategy, working with renowned global forecasting companies and brands including Nike, ASOS, adidas, IKEA and Peroni. Lara also writes features on wellness, diversity and inclusion, youth culture and future innovations for titles such as Vogue, Refinery29, and Included Magazine.

In a hyper-connected world, it feels like everything previously ‘insider’ is more available than ever: from behind-the-scenes access to the lives of public figures to travel experiences immersing people into worlds previously deemed unattainable. But while people embrace this community-based inclusivity and unprecedented access to their icons, they still yearn for touches of exclusivity to define their status.

As the age-old understanding of exclusivity is eroded, people are redefining status for themselves using a broad range of factors beyond solely economic ones. This new iteration of status is often based around increasingly niche and local signifiers – from luxury dupes to the rise of members clubs and closed-community spaces based on shared interests. Status is becoming a mode of belonging and connection with like-minded people.

People are erecting walls of their exclusive communities, relying on more subtle markers of identity. This is apparent with middle-class people fetishising working-class aesthetics, athletes turning to niche sports like padel, and social media groups organising around niche interests – spawning companies. As status-defined micro-trends on social media accelerate, brands face a challenge to keep up. If previously certain legacy items were automatically associated with exclusivity, now people are much more trusting of the UGC-defined vision of what status means. More than ever, speed, knowledge, inventiveness, and being plugged into the community determine what – and who – is in.

Insider Status

Diverse representation is an expectation, but as individuals no longer allow themselves to be defined in singular terms, there's mounting pressure on brands to understand and sensitively reflect how the intersections between race, gender, class, and ability impact people's everyday lives.

Collective Equity

Holly is the Chief Operating and Commercial Officer at NME Networks, the media division of Caldecott Music Group that includes 

, Guitar.com and MusicTech. Prior to joining Caldecott Music Group in 2019, Holly spent more than a decade working at two of the UK's largest media owners, Global and TI Media (now Future), and has a proven track record of transforming and leading businesses to success.

Cheri Percy is a freelance music journalist and broadcaster based in the UK. She has written features for The Guardian. Noisey, Refinery29 and The Fader. Cheri has hosted culture shows across Soho Radio and Resonance FM and has delivered content creation workshops for young adults at art institutions like The Roundhouse and music college BIMM Academy.

Media and Entertainment

Publishing

Music, radio, and podcasts

Interview with Holly Bishop conducted by the author

Interview with Cheri Percy conducted by the author

Luxurious Magazine

CenturyLink

Wasserman

YouGov

Google

MarketWatch

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