Meet the ‘clean girl’ influencers fighting a vicious Battle of the Beige
As Sydney Nicole Gifford sues Alyssa Sheil for stealing her ‘look’, Rachel Richardson looks at a test case that could change everything for the influencers making a living from flogging their lifestyles online
Sydney Nicole Gifford and Alyssa Sheil’s commitment to a neutral aesthetic is strong. Their wardrobes are packed with beige garments that are styled daily into head-to-toe monochromatic looks. Their homes are just as one-note, with walls covered in calm, muted tones from paints with names like bone, putty or alabaster. Their floors are decked in natural wood, large windows are covered by light-diffusing ivory voiles and oyster-coloured boucle furnishings are dotted around minimal and sparse rooms. Their dedication to their beige lifestyle even extends to the emoji they both frequently use in Instagram captions – the off-white coloured heart.
The women follow what’s known as the “clean girl” aesthetic. Its high priestess is Hailey Bieber and it is now such a ubiquitous style that for anyone to claim ownership of it requires a great deal of magical thinking. But that’s exactly what Gifford has done after she accused fellow social media influencer Sheil of stealing her “neutral, beige, and cream aesthetic” in a first-of-its-kind legal action. It’s a case that many social media influencers are watching closely, so tied up are their incomes now with the image that they “sell” online.
Gifford, 24, and Sheil, 21, were once acquaintances who lived close to each other in Texas. As fashion and lifestyle influencers who both hawk Amazon products for a living, they decided to – in social media speak – “collab” and shoot some photographs together.
Both women scour the e-commerce site to find items they think their audience will buy to make posts that sell them hard. They link to their recommended products and earn roughly 3 to 4 per cent in commission if their viewers purchase the goods. For some products, like luxury beauty, they can earn a 10 per cent kickback.
Understanding what women want and being able to use your aesthetic and lifestyle to sell it has helped both Gifford and Sheil gain large followings. Gifford has over 600,000 on TikTok and 300,000 on Instagram, while Sheil boasts 138,000 on the same platform.
How much those audiences have translated into earnings isn’t public knowledge but they both choose to be full-time Amazon influencers. After their second meet-up in early 2023, relations between the pair soured and Sheil blocked Gifford on social media. Gifford now claims that’s when Sheil began to copy almost every aspect of her look, arguing that she’s due tens of thousands of dollars because her former collaborator has “stolen” her style.
In a legal complaint filed in April, Gifford accused Sheil of mimicking her Amazon product recommendations, social media posts, poses, outfits and even her manner of speaking. Gifford says that Sheil got a “nearly identical” fine line tattoo in the same position on her upper arm, as well as altering her hair to mirror the same style she has. Sheil denies copying Gifford and has counter-claimed that it’s actually Gifford who has ripped her off.
Gifford claims that she’s owed between $30,000 and $150,000 (£117,000) in damages for mental anguish and lost sales commission from Amazon. She also alleges that she’s seen a dip in followers and engagement on social platforms because of Sheil. If she’s successful, the industry of influencing could be turned on its head and there would be far-reaching consequences for the application of copyright law. But can a person really lay claim to an aesthetic? And what if that look is – whisper it – basic and beige?
The clean girl trend sprang up around 2022 and it’s had enduring appeal considering the fleeting nature of fashion. Its staying power is likely down to the fact it leans into crowd-pleasing comfort with a uniform of oversized sweatsuit sets, boyfriend jeans, cosy basics and workout clothes. And while it can be far from the high-end “quiet-luxury” vibe of muted colours and soft fabrics such as cashmere, it can still be aspirational owing to figures like Bieber, Molly-Mae Hague and Sofia Richie Grainge who indulge in the beige craze.
The clean girl aesthetic has likely stayed the course because it’s achievable, photogenic and algorithm-friendly too. And given that Gifford and Sheil both make their living from their ability to make engaging content for social media, it’s easy to see why they’re devotees.
Given the incentives provided by the Amazon influencer programme, social media algorithms and the ubiquity of the clean girl aesthetic, it’s possible to argue that it’s sheer coincidence that Gifford and Sheil’s content is so similar. Women attend weddings in the same frocks after all. But when the posts are shown side by side, like they are in the legal complaint, it’s equally possible to entertain the argument that one is copying the other.
One such example shows the women posing in the same cream cable-knit lounge set. They both pose with their right knee bent, their iPhones covering their faces as they take selfies in a mirror. Another shows a close-up of their ears as they pull back their dark hair to reveal a gold bow earring. They have the same doormat, side tables, storage benches, lamps, towel warmers, fake olive trees and hallway storage stools, as well as tons of the same outfits – monochrome obviously.
But even if it’s determined that the posts are too similar for legal comfort it’s not clear whether that means copyright law has been broken. If a creator screenshot and reposted another’s work but made out it was their own then that’s a solid case. But to take the same items and shoot them in a similar way, in homes that are almost identical, is a more complex case to prove.
If Gifford wins her fight then it may mean that social media influencers making content in an established style could be found liable of copyright infringement. It would likely open the floodgates on many more legal battles and upend the creator industry. As huge sums can be made from influencing, many young women now make it into their full-time “jobs”, which means livelihoods are now at stake.
Gifford told The Verge that change is what she’s after. She said: “I hope that it makes people more mindful, because there are so many instances of other creators I’ve seen getting their content completely replicated by people.”
A complicating factor in Gifford’s claim is that she did not invent the basic, beige style. And that is ultimately the basis of Sheil’s defence. The world of TikTok trends depends on certain styles and aesthetics “taking off” – so isn’t everyone, to some extent style stealing off each other?
Sheil, also speaking to The Verge, claims that she’s being unfairly targeted. “There are hundreds of people with the exact same aesthetic, and I’m the only one that’s having to go through this,” Sheil says.
What happens next is for the courts to decide. But also could be determined by a shift in vibes. The clean girl look has been in vogue longer than most would have anticipated. What happens when another photogenic, algorithm-friendly aesthetic comes along? And when it does, who will own it?
Rachel Richardson writes the trends newsletter highly flammable on Substack
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