“Having given birth just 2.5 months ago, never had I imagined myself to be walking my third red carpet on the 74th Cannes Film Festival. But, here I am…for the first time as a mother and the third time as Diipa,” read the Instagram post of Diipa Buller Khosla, the first Indian-born influencer to make it big internationally.
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Beyond Influencer
The 30-year-old, who prefers to be referred to as a new-age digital celebrity than an influencer, is making heads turn with her glamorous appearances at the Cannes Film Festival. Her Cannes debut happened in 2018 and with every passing year, she is becoming a stronger brand ambassador for India.
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From just another brown girl to gracing the cover of international magazines such as Elegance and Conde Nast Traveler and being on the billboard at London’s Piccadilly Circus, Kholsa has come a long way.
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A popular Instagrammer with 1.4 million followers, Khosla is using her clout to create healthy dialogues around women empowerment and racial discrimination. She is also a founder of Post for Change Foundation, which uses social media to bring social change.
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Law graduate-turned-fashionista
Born and raised in India, Khosla was 17 when she moved to the Netherlands to study law. After completing her degree in international human rights law, she moved to London for her master’s. But life had different plans for her: She bagged an internship at a fashion agency during the four-month break between her university and job as a lawyer.
In a conversation with HT Brunch, she said, “To my utter surprise, it turned out to Europe’s first influencer agency. I knew nothing about this world, yet on my third day in the sales team, I was closing huge deals with fashion brands like Mango and Kiara.”
That internship helped Diipa understand the power of influencers and how working with them could be a great business strategy for consumer-facing brands.
“At that time, almost all the influencers came from the US and Europe, and it struck me that there was no Indian representing us in the global beauty and fashion space. I realized that if I could do this, I could totally change the whole influencer game,” she added.
Indianness as a gold medal
Like most desis abroad, Khosla, too, had to face racism.
“In 2016, I was rejected by a PR firm to attend a London Fashion Week show and another influencer, who was Caucasian with less followers, was allowed. The only difference was our skin tones.”
However, Khosla channeled all her anger into hard work. “I started wearing my Indianness like a gold medal and that gave me confidence.”
Khosla was recognized as the ‘The Changemaker Influencer of 2019’ by Inflow, the world’s largest influencer platform, and this feat gave birth to the Post for Change Foundation. Along with her Dutch diplomat husband Oleg Buller, she started the foundation to bring about a change. Post for Change has collaborated with UNICEF for Red Dot Challenge to emphaise the importance of menstrual hygiene.
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“There was not a single influencer representing India on a global scale. So, I decided it was about time I change that,” she added.
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