Sarita Cuervo always wanted to be an influencer, even as a kid. “I was that girl taking pictures of my unicorn strawberry Starbucks drink on my iPod Touch and posting it on Instagram with white borders circa 2010,” the 23-year-old recalls. “Even before influencers were a thing, I was always like, ‘Oh my God, I want to be like them.’” Cuervo moved to New York from Miami last year to pursue her online ambitions full time — the “networking” in the city, she says, is “insane” — and she certainly plays the part. Every day, she posts videos about picking out her outfits, wandering through Soho, and “pretending” to be Zoomer Carrie Bradshaw. “When I woke up this morning, I had lit-er-ally no idea how hard I was going to slay,” she recently told her 152.2k followers on TikTok. (She has 21.5k on Instagram.) So of course Cuervo, like plenty of this town’s plucky and ambitious not-quite-celebrity influencers, is also a Parade Girl. Meaning, she’s one of a whole legion of femme-presenting spokesmodels for the Gen-Z underwear brand Parade, whose tagline is “The internet’s favorite underwear.”
Cuervo really believes in these panties, and not just because they are cute, comfortable, and inexpensive, which they are. She thinks wearing Parade aligns with her values of inclusivity and body positivity. “I want you to come to my page and leave feeling like you’ve just had a breath of fresh air,” she says. “That’s why I work with brands that do the same thing; I just want to make people feel happy. ” No, it doesn’t bother her that she’s basically doing low-cost advertising half-naked for a $200 million company. That’s just how things work in influencer-land. And she thinks it’s been good for her personal brand as well. This is what sets Parade apart: a cult of panty posers like Cuervo, but often with far smaller followings than she has (and never huge ones), eager to ally themselves with the company…
Read the full article here
