Get to Know the Duo Behind our New Favorite Instagram Account @oldmanrepeller

Photo credit: Man Repeller | Graphic by: Sara Plank

By: The Making it in Manhattan Team

The other week the news broke that Repeller aka Man Repeller is closing, and yes, we’re crushed. Here at Making it in Manhattan, we all grew up in this industry with Man Repeller and Leandra Medine’s unique perspective on life. Once an insult, being called a “man repeller” is now the coolest thing there could be and we’d be lying if we said we wouldn’t miss their eclectic, one-of-a-kind posts in our feed — that was until we found @oldmanrepeller. The account popped up after the Man Repeller rebrand in September and has quickly became one of our favorite accounts to follow. Read ahead as we get to know the duo behind the growing Instagram account and their inspiration behind staring @oldmanrepeller.

Introduce yourself! Who are you?

We (Grace Avery & Sian Samuel) are two fashion victims (and good friends) who met last year in Australia and are now in a long-distance friendship. Sian is a recent fashion graduate who lives in the UK and Grace is a soon-to-be fashion graduate living in Sydney, Australia.

How do you feel about the sudden news of Man Repeller closing?

It’s an odd one, from our perspective we said goodbye to Man Repeller weeks ago, but we’re disappointed it’s now closing completely. We were looking forward to seeing how the evolution of the brand was going to play out and unfortunately, we won’t have that opportunity now.

Why did you love Man Repeller? What do you think made it so unique?

MR was unlike any other fashion blog - it always had a unique perspective that wasn’t shared anywhere else on the internet. It offered so much more than telling readers what to wear and how to wear it - the blog challenged the boundaries of both your personal opinions and your personal style. As teens pre-2010, we would have been offended if we were given the label of Man Repeller, but now it’s a badge of honour, we think, that sums up the role Leandra and MR played in our sense of self and our perception of femininity in the modern world.

What inspired you to create the Instagram account @oldmanrepeller?

We were chatting about the new Repeller and in order to deal with the change (and the pain that comes with change), we were joking about how @oldmanrepeller could be the next @oldceline. We decided to make it for our own enjoyment, and much to our surprise, others felt the same way!

How do you choose what to post on @oldmanrepeller? Between Leandra’s iconic looks and such great website content, there’s a lot to choose from.

We really post what is speaking to us at the time, there is a lot switching between summer and winter lewks because we are in different hemispheres and inspired by the opposite! We love it when fellow MR lovers DM us for requests and take a lot of advice from them as well!

Do you have a favorite look/articles from Man Repeller that’s stuck with you through the years?

Grace - I love the summer lewks and how layering is used intentionally (despite the heat), and ANYTHING with Rosie Assoulin pieces! My favourite article proved to be a bit controversial when it was posted on our instagram, ‘6 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was Single’. Personally, it helped me a lot when I was young(er), heartbroken and couldn’t really see anything else in life. One line especially stuck with me, I consider it a mantra (and have been known to adapt it in my Bumble description) - “I basically salsa danced my way through the summer of 2010.”

Siân - When I was 20 and about to graduate I read “Why I Stopped Caring About Being Cool”, it was a real moment for me because for the first time I knew I wasn’t going to be thrown into situations like university anymore where I had to try REALLY hard to find my place and be liked, I can be myself now!!! It took some time to find out who that person actually was but I think I’ve figured it out now! I’m big on the MR shoe choices, I think it’s the reason I now buy footwear I never wear. I live in the English countryside, not ideal for embellished satin pumps!!!

In only a short period of time you gained over 20K followers and are continuing to grow. In a time where people say it's so hard to grow on social media, why do you think your account has had such instant success?

It is 100% the content Leandra & the MR team have created, and that it has really inspired so many throughout the years, it really is a credit to how unique the concept and content is. We consider ourselves really the curators just condensing it into one easily accessed place. It may also be the current state of the world, we seem to be more nostalgic than ever and craving the authenticity and individuality that seems to be lost through the growth of social media.

Where do you see the future of @oldmanrepeller going: other social media platforms? A Website?

That’s a difficult one as what we don't want to do is become the ‘New Man Repeller’. We want to keep it separate from ourselves so that the page will forever be a place for the content Leandra and the rest of the team created. Before @oldmanrepeller was set up though, the two of us were in talks about a collaborative project where we could create our own fashion/lifestyle content but we’re still bouncing ideas off each other. There will definitely be content from us coming in the near future!

Do you think there will ever be another brand or media site that could compete with the brand Man Repeller left behind?

We are definitely of the belief that there is so much space for success that it doesn’t have to ‘compete’ per se. The original idea of ‘man-repelling’ has inspired so many people and brands that no doubt they intrinsically will continue the work of Man Repeller in their own unique way!

In our ever-changing media landscape, do you have any predictions for what’s next?

We hope to see a bit of a revival of long-form media, everything online at the moment is so quickly consumable it leaves people with nothing of substance most of the time, it’s entertaining of course, but can’t we have both? This is exactly the reason people loved Man Repeller and why it was such a success for so long, obviously it adapted over time, but even the outfit posts had a topic of discussion, a point of view that gave readers more than the knowledge of what boots to buy for winter.