[TREND WATCH] Moti Ankari on going from Instagramming shoes to selling them

Over the next few weeks, we’re bringing you bonus episodes of the Glossy Podcast.

Glossy Trend Watch: Influencer Edition features interviews with some of the most prominent fashion influencers on how they’ve used their success and social media followings to launch major brands. Our guests made the leap from interacting with existing brands online to creating some of their own.

For our second episode, Glossy senior technology reporter Katie Richards sits down with Moti Ankari, a menswear blogger who co-founded footwear brand Ankari Floruss with fellow blogger Marcel Floruss.

"I was actually one of the first wave of male influencers," Ankari said. "Nine years ago, there were like five of us out there." Tellingly, the word "influencer" didn't exist to describe someone making a living off of their social media connections -- the word got its own entry on Dictionary.com in 2016.

Ankari talks about learning the ins and outs of designing footwear and how to leverage his social following to drive sales.