wearing Shevoke,” Hyde told Inside Retail. “I get excited even walking down the street and I see someone wearing Shevoke… I can spot Shevoke a mile away,” she added. Hyde’s approach to timeless and quality design is compounded by her strategic influencer gifting and partnerships – resulting in a lucrative business model. Good design is influential  In what might be a surprising revelation given its heavy social media presence, Shevoke doesn’t pay for influencers to wear its eyewear. Instead, Hyde has cultivated a contact list of fashion-forward influencers and when Shevoke is looking to drop a new SKU or complete collection, she sends it out to them. “A lot of people follow suit from the girls that are wearing our brand – so a lot of focus comes from the fashion influences and that’s where people pick it up,” Hyde elaborated. This strategic network has helped Shevoke save on expensive shoots and potentially paid media placement. Moreover, they generate sales. “Influencers play a massive part in what’s trending, and we’re just lucky that they like our product,” stated Hyde. According to Hyde, the typical gifting process for Shevoke involves an influencer sliding into the brand’s Instagram direct messages and requesting specific styles – and the process of getting Kendall and Kylie Jenner to wear its sunglasses didn’t stray far from this playbook. “To be honest, we should have a better strategy but given that we just got Kendall and Kylie, I think that that’s pretty massive,” Hyde said  “I haven’t really been the type of person to seek or pay celebrity stylists or agencies to do product placement – it’s always been quite organic,” she added. In this case, it wasn’t Kendall Jenner who reached out to the Shevoke team but her celebrity stylist Dani Michelle. “Dani Michelle reached out and asked for specific styles, she said, ‘Kendall really loves these’,” explained Hyde. “We put together a lot more than what she asked for – I think in that moment you got to make the most of it and take advantage of the fact that Dani Michelle has reached out,” she added. But given that this wasn’t a paid collaboration or product placement there was no promise of an Instagram post or public sighting of Jenner sporting Shevoke’s eyewear.  “I actually saw Kylie in our Zulu black sunglasses first. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what’s happened here?’ because we’d sent Kendall that sunglass,” shared Hyde. “I went to bed that night and woke up the next morning, and honestly, I don’t think we could have even afforded this type of placement,” she added. To Hyde’s shock, both Jenner sisters were photographed exiting Hailey Bieber’s Rhode event wearing Shevoke sunglasses. Within 48 hours of the Shevoke team sharing the paparazzi photos across its social media pages, the featured sunglasses sold out. “We very luckily had stock coming in… you gift something and then an influencer wears it, you sell out straight away,” Hyde said. “But because of the Black Friday sales coming up we were prepared with stock coming in, so it was only a couple of days that it was out of stock and the remaining we could put on pre-order,” she added. Taking back creative control Hyde credits Shevoke’s new wave of success to taking back control of the brand from wholesalers and investing in her e-commerce business. “I thought wholesale was where it was always going to be at, I thought going through other retailers to give you awareness is kind of what you have to do,” Hyde stated. “But now I have a different way of thinking – I think you can really market well through your online store,” she added. As a result of Shevoke’s viral moment with the Jenners, many retailers, both domestic and international, have reached out to Hyde to stock the brand. Hyde knows the “Shevoke girl” and has found great success since taking back control of her campaigns and ads. Moreover, after being in business for 10 years she understands what makes a good pair of sunglasses and what doesn’t. “I understand what people are really wanting in their sunglasses, and that’s why we’re able to create these designs that are now being replicated and duped all around the world,” Hyde elaborated. Shevoke has built its business from the ground up starting with its designs and is only gaining further momentum after this latest celebrity endorsement “We’ve actually onboarded a new staff [member] at the moment just to keep up with the demand,” she concluded. “We’ve got a lot of eyes on the brand, and I’m super excited. I think it’s just the beginning.”