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Fjolla Arifi hates being called an influencer. Despite having over 180,000 followers on Instagram, she doesn’t chase after clout.

Arifi, a junior magazine major at Syracuse University, has attended New York Fashion Week events and has worked at agencies such as Marilyn Agency and Supreme Management.

Arifi’s first job in the modeling and makeup industries was for Aeropostale, but she was disappointed by the company’s style.

In high school, Arifi moved from Queens to Manhattan, which she said changed her perception of fashion and makeup by seeing everyone dressed up all the time and being around so many creative people.

“I’ve met a lot of amazing people and the industry,” Arifi said. “I feel like it’s been most prevalent in my life right now, especially meeting stylists.”

Four years ago, she and some friends decided to get their makeup license in New York City. She thought it would be something fun to do and began posting her looks online. Arifi never thought that it would turn into a career.

Arifi is involved with the Fashion and Design Society on campus. Courtesy of Fjolla Arifi

As an artist, Arifi finds herself looking toward other countries to get a sense of what trends are coming up and tries to think of things that she would want to see on the runway. She looks at Tokyo Fashion Week and Seoul Fashion Week as she believes they seem to be ahead in terms of fashion trends.

Arifi has attended New York Fashion Week since she was around 15, and began getting into fashion in middle school. Inspired by the trends from her friends studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology, she started exploring her own styling techniques around street-style clothing.

To her, street-style is about being comfortable and confident in whatever you are wearing while also blurring the line with editorial fashion.

“It’s about wearing whatever I wanna where, while keeping up with trends and making it my own,” she said.

In 2018, she interned for ENNUI, a textile company in New York City. She would rush
back and forth between the Bibhu Mohapatra headquarters in Manhattan to the ENNUI headquarters in Brooklyn several times a day carrying bags of fabric just to make sure everything was prepared for New York Fashion Week.

While working there she met fashion designer Bibhu Mohapatra and got invited to the Tommy Hilfiger and Alexander Wang shows at the fall 2018 New York Fashion Week in preparation for their spring collection.

“It was like something you see in one of those cliche movies,” she said.

During Arifi’s freshman year at SU, she noticed that her small following on Instagram was growing larger. Thinking outside the box, and staying true to herself, helped attract her following.

While attending New York Fashion Week a couple of years ago, Arifi met Guvanch Agajumayev — a creative director and fashion stylist — and the two became close friends. Since then, Agajumayev has reached out to Arifi to model for his brand Guvanch.

When the two worked together on the shoot for the launch of Guvanch, Arifi stood on an unstable ladder in the water close to a bridge in Bushwick Inlet Park in Williamsburg, a task that Agajumayev said was very dangerous. Agajumayev is always inspired by how Arifi challenges herself and brings unique ideas to everything she does.

The junior has attended New York Fashion Week since she was around 15, and began getting into fashion during middle school. Courtesy of Fjolla Arifi

“She’s a very spicy girl,” he said.

Agajumayev doesn’t see Arifi as an influencer and instead sees her as an artist that “paints with her clothes.” How she sees and uses color to create an image that viewers just want to stare at is not something he sees other influencers focusing on today.

Agajumayev said he will come to her with one idea and Arifi will give him five more that really helps the product or the entire project look much better.

“She’s the one of the easiest people to work with, one of the fastest people to work with,” Agajumayev said. “I’m very happy that I know her and throughout the years, we have been supporting each other.”

Right now, Arifi isn’t signed with a specific agency, but whenever an agency sends out an email needing a makeup artist for a shoot, she jumps at the opportunity if she’s available.

SU has provided Arifi with opportunities to pursue her dream of writing for a magazine. Last semester, Arifi studied on campus and wrote for ZIPPED Magazine, where she has previously worked as digital director. This spring, she is studying remotely in New York City and working as a contributing writer for PopSugar.

Arifi has been involved in the Fashion and Design Society, which mimicked her New York City experience on campus, she said. Jessie Zhai, vice president and the head of photography and videography for FADS, first met Arifi when she joined the makeup and hair team. Zhai and Arifi have worked together on monthly photoshoots, and last semester, the two did a photoshoot that lasted from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. in Zhai’s apartment.

While photographing one of their looks last fall, Arifi had a moment of inspiration in which she needed elf ears. So she and Zhai took an Uber around Syracuse late at night to four different locations just to find them, a moment that Zhai said speaks to Arifi’s attention to detail as an artist.

But whenever the two talk, Zhai notices Arifi never talks about her presence on social media.

“She just hates talking about it,” Zhai said.

Published on March 16, 2021 at 10:14 pm