The Views: Fashion Roadman Critiques Fashion with Style and Substance
Youtube
Handle: He goes by @FashionRoadman on all platforms: YouTube, Instagram, Twitter/X, Threads, Facebook, TikTok, Patreon, Twitch and Spotify.
Series: His longest series is Fashion News with 97 videos, though his most in-depth work is a 14-part dissection of Dana Thomas’ book, How Luxury Lost Its Lustre.
Creators: The channel is led by Fashion Roadman (Odunayo Ojo), with occasional interviews with other fashion designers, like American luxury streetwear designer Don C.
Platform: His primary source of content is YouTube and Patreon, with shorter edits posted on TikTok, Instagram Reels and other platforms.
Genre: The main category his content takes up is Style, with Entertainment as a close second, considering he also takes the time to analyze shows and runways also.
Subscribers/Followers: He has 141,000 YouTube subscribers, 40,500 Instagram followers, 13,800 on TikTok, 9,500 Twitter followers and 9,000 on Threads.
Odunayo Ojo, also known as Fashion Roadman online, is a Nigerian fashion journalist and UK-based freelance writer published in Vogue, GQ, BoF and named in the Vogue Business 100 Innovators List in 2022. His YouTube channel gained traction for its detailed, research-driven analysis. Journalists and magazines would show interest in his potential for fashion journalism at a time when he was about to enter university to study that same subject. Luke Leitch, who interviewed him for Vogue Business, labeled him in 2022 as a “fashion critic for [the] new generation.” Indeed, the online moniker of “Fashion Roadman” came as a direct response to those calling him out for “dressing weird,” as Ojo himself states in the interview.
In a video from 4 months ago, where he describes the processes of becoming a YouTube content creator, Fashion Roadman reveals that his current channel is not his first attempt at creating an online presence of his type, but rather his second. According to Ojo, his first channel failed because he wasn’t consistent enough. As he’s been posting more consistently since the beginning of the Fashion Roadman channel, his content has been thriving as well. He has had interviews with fashion designers, has written for online publications like FLANNELS.COM. He also has an electronic book published and advertised on all of his social platforms.
If in the beginning of his career on YouTube, his tone aligned more with the perspective of someone just overall impassioned about the industry, nowadays his increased and direct experience with said industry shows even more. A notable example is his 14-part series on Dana Thomas’ book “How Luxury Lost Its Lustre.” Though the series is gated behind a $3 Patreon and/or YouTube membership - which is surprisingly low considering how dense his library of references is - Ojo mentions the book as a veritable source in several of his videos. This shows that he holds on to the knowledge that he gathers, and like with past history, lets it inform his present analysis. Ojo’s platform, aimed at “all fashion lovers,” relies a lot on his earlier passions as a fashion journalism student. As such, the dedication to maintaining his sources exhibits his ability to apply them anywhere. Ojo’s personal experience makes learning his resources all the more impertinent if the viewer is a fashion journalist as well.
Fashion Roadman is in general a very contemporary creator. He comments on recent trends, runways and designers, and treats the past with the same lens, dissecting old fashion history within the scope of today. His commentary is not restricted to just design criticism either, but also very direct call-outs of known issues within the fashion industry, like luxury brands exploiting workers or other similar “cost-cutting procedures,” in his words. Even though each of his videos average 12-15 minutes, they are dense with useful analysis. In a video addressing the Valentino brand being exposed for its treatment of its employees and workers, Fashion Roadman lays out the issue in detail. It is done in a way that a consumer that is not aware of the issue or of the industry at all can understand quickly, all within 12 minutes. He maintains the same tone even in his YouTube and Twitch streams, in-between engaging with different members of his community, through the comment section or the stream chat. Ojo’s personal involvement with viewers has shown to have affected his reputation positively. He pulls decent viewership for how many subscribers or followers he has, depending on the platform he is interacting on. On YouTube, for example, he reached a viewership peak of 15,000 members at one time while streaming Demna’s Gucci Debut Collection. The clips from these big streams have Fashion Roadman near constantly replying to viewers’ comments.
His audience is a mix of long-time fashion enjoyers and newcomers to the scene. The differences in what they comment under his videos are subtle, as most if not all the comments are very positive. What is very obvious is that there is a desire for conversation. Ojo appeals to either side by discussing topics that someone more familiar with the industry is already aware of, and wants to hear a (fellow) fashion expert’s opinion, relayed concisely and simply to someone who is less familiar. In his video about the Met Gala’s theme highlighting Black dandyism, commenters ardently comment on the topic: some give their own thoughts, unfiltered, some provide references. It reads almost like a roundtable discussion. Ojo’s mission on YouTube has been to “produce new discussions around fashion.” By fostering a community that constantly and consistently shares nuggets of wisdom with one another, Fashion Roadman has given his goal all the more substance.
