Man Repeller's Leandra Medine Is Literally Turning Down Money Left and Right (2024)

"I never go to events," says Leandra Medine as she walks through the lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel on Feb. 18, 2015. It’s the night before the last day of New York Fashion Week, and even though it’s only 7:30, Medine says she ready for bed.

First, though, she has the New York Magazine party to attend, then it’s off to the Miu Miu co*cktail party and film screening where Medine, 26, is being paid to handle social media. That might not sound like a particularly taxing night, but after a week of running to and from fashion shows and blogging on Man Repeller — the fashion-blog-turned-media company Medine founded in 2010 while studying journalism at the New School — two events feel like a tall order.

There is limited space on the rooftop of the Gramercy Park Hotel, and a line of publicists stand between the lobby and the elevators to keep out the riffraff. Medine begins to give her name but is instantly recognized by the black-clad PR girls. As the elevator doors open, a group of publicists and editors exit. They too know Medine, and the elevator is held for a moment while she says a quick hello and good-bye. Inside the elevator, another acquaintance says hello and, once the elevator doors open, another. Then another.

This level of notoriety is hardly surprising given Man Repeller’s success and what a prominent player Medine has become in the New York fashion scene. In just over five years, Man Repeller has grown its online audience to upward of 1 million unique monthly visitors and 10 million monthly page views, according to Medine, and has a strong following on Twitter and Instagram, with 258,000 and 909,000 followers, respectively. In 2013, Medine published her first book, Man Repeller: Seeking Love. Finding Overalls, and today she sits front row at major fashion shows — a sign of status within a very hierarchical, insular, and competitive industry — from New York to Paris.

Medine started Man Repeller to boost her résumé and get an edge on her classmates post-graduation when it came time to apply for writing jobs, but within a fews days of its launch, Man Repeller was featured on Refinery29 and very quickly developed into a full-fledged business. Through a combination of traditional advertising, sponsored blog posts, appearance fees, and designer collaborations, Medine was pulling in six figures while still in school. "By the time I graduated, I had started monetizing on the site in a meaningful enough way [that I didn’t need to] get a traditional job," Medine says later over the phone. "I [decided to] ride the wave until it crashed — and I was sure it was going to crash — and for years it was like, ’OK. The wave’s not crashing. This is the weirdest ocean I’ve ever been in.’"

In the early days, Man Repeller was a personal style blog built largely around Medine and her distinctive dress sense: a more-is-more mash-up of clothes and accessories in combinations so out-there — a skirt, over culottes, over skinny jeans, tucked into boots, for example — that the name "Man Repeller" sometimes felt more like a manifesto than a cheeky conceit. Sort of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days crammed into a single outfit, repeated over and over in one fabulously outlandish creation after another.

But as Man Repeller grows — it now has six full-time employees and a chic loft office downtown — and as Medine herself gains creditability within the fashion industry, she’s attempting to evolve her blog. "I used to do these outfit posts where I would dress myself in all these layers — sort of showing you how the sausage gets made, but I did one over the holidays as a kind of throwback and I hated it. I felt like a parody of myself."

Man Repeller is now shifting its focus toward fashion reviews, lifestyle, and trend pieces, and has added new writers in an attempt to expand the site’s voice beyond Medine herself. And Man Repeller hopes her readers recognize how much goes into the site every day. "I have a pretty decent understanding of which posts will perform better than others," she says. "Specifically on Instagram, when it’s a style picture, those ones always get way more likes. And then I get this all the time: ’I’m such a big fan of your Instagram. Is that all you do?’ and that always feels a little bit soul-crushing. It’s not that Instagram is an afterthought, but it’s an outlet we use to promote the content on the site, you know? So I’m like ’No. No. It’s not. We’re putting out, like, 4,000 words a day, man. Come read them!’"

A 20-foot journey to the bar for a glass of soda water — Medine doesn’t drink during Fashion Week — takes another five minutes, as more people say hello. She greets nearly everyone by name, complimenting each one on a recent accomplishment or following up on a past endeavor. It’s obvious that these interactions mean a lot to Medine, who still considers herself something of an outsider — hungering for the acceptance of the fashion establishment even as she blazes her own trail outside it.

"The currency of my success is still not measured in dollars," Medine says, "It’s totally measured in respect." She says she would be much more excited to be seated a dinner with fashion journalist Cathy Horyn and for Horyn to know that she exists than to secure a big advertiser for the site.

Medine says authenticity has been key to her success, and it’s something she is anxious to protect as Man Repeller grows. To that end, she refuses to sell Instagrams on Man Repeller’s account, and she says she places editorial integrity above profitability when it comes to advertising and sponsorships. According to Medine, she turns down money-making opportunities on an almost daily basis because she doesn’t believe they are right for the site. "You can’t sell a review," she says, "and none of our Fashion Week coverage is sponsored."

Of course, while Medine may measure success in terms of respect, her staff has bills to pay, and landlords in New York City do not accept prestige in lieu of rent money. Understanding the needs of a growing business and her fiscal responsibility to her employees, Medine is working on creating new revenue streams that she hopes will balance these dual needs for authenticity and advertiser funding. Although she is reticent about outlining her strategy before it is implemented, she recently added an advertising sales role to her team, the first such position in her company’s history.

To date, Medine has managed to grow her company without any outside investment, opening her office downtown and hiring new staff only when Man Repeller began earning enough money to support them. She also says she does not currently take a salary from Man Repeller and instead earns her money through side projects like appearing in campaigns and lookbooks.

As Medine continues to make her way around the New York Magazine party, a young woman introduces herself. She says Medine inspired her to start her own blog a few years earlier after she responded to an email the woman sent her asking for advice. A few minutes later, another woman comes over with a similar story.

"I love when that happens," Medine says. "It makes me feel like people are actually seeing what I’m doing. That’s what I always wanted Man Repeller to do — to change the way people actually think. Showing young girls that there are no rules." Medine acknowledges that her own success is as much a function of good timing as it is her strong voice. "I think that when I started Man Repeller, the Internet was still hungry for authentic content from girls that weren’t actresses or supermodels, and were just relatable girls who had opinions and outfit ideas, and they weren’t always good but at least they were original. Whereas now, everything is so glossy."

"Glossy" is one of the things Medine does not want to be. "Especially with Instagram, I feel reluctant to make all the photos beautiful because I don’t necessarily want to send this message that life is perfect and your avocado toast is always going to be beautifully lit," she says. "I want readers to feel like the Man Repeller page is real and kind of dirty. Messy."

At 8:30, it’s time to head uptown to the Miu Miu party and film screening. Once again, the publicists instantly recognize Medine and let her in without asking her name. Inside, another publicist offers to check her coat for her while Medine does her duty as a brand ambassador and has her picture taken in the psychedelic ’60s-inspired minidress loaned to her by Miu Miu for the night.

Free clothes and accessories, whether loaned or gifted, are one of the major perks of being a top fashion blogger. "I do get gifted a lot," Medine says, "especially around Fashion Week. Brands are so eager to be photographed. It’s the byproduct of that whole street-style thing." Even though Medine is loath to stand outside of fashion shows having her picture taken, she is still a top street-style star and brands know that when she wears their clothes during Fashion Week, worldwide coverage is all but assured. Yet, even with all the freebies coming her way, Medine still shops. "It is important to support designers, especially young designers, by actually buying their clothes," she says. "If I really like something, I’m going to buy it even if I could maybe get it for free. A designer like Tome, it’s not expensive — it’s not cheap at all, but it’s affordable — and I want to support them, so I buy it and I let them know that I buy it."

The mood inside the Miu Miu party is much less friendly than at the earlier party, and although there are certainly people for Medine to say hello to, she moves through room after room with much greater anonymity than before.

Still, even though she’s not the star of the party, partnering with a brand like Miu Miu is a big deal — surely a sign that she has "made it" in the fashion industry, right?

Not so, according to Medine. "I’m still new to fashion," she says. "I used to think, ’I’ll really know I’ve made it when I work with Chanel,’ but then I started going to the shows — you know, they fly people out to wherever for their pre-fall and resort shows — but as wonderful as that was and is, I feel like I could disappear tomorrow and no one in this room would be affected." (Three months later, a publicist would send out a press release detailing the Chopard jewelry Medine wore at the Cannes Film Festival.)

Without the constant influx of smiling faces and well wishers like at the previous party, the night is beginning to wear on and Leandra suggests with a laugh that we do like many of the too-cool fashion people around us and "stand in a circle and look bitchy" while waiting for the film to start.

It’s a short film about a maid in an imaginary hotel and the magical, living dress (Miu Miu, of course) that chooses her to wear it. It’s surreal and charming, and the dialogue is in a made-up language with English subtitles. As the lights come up, everyone agrees that the film is "wonderful," although no one seems to say much more than that.

"Did you get it?" Medine asks, gently cutting through the posturing as the group rushes en masse toward the stairs. The magical dress itself hangs in the stairwell between the first and second floors, and people crowd around to take pictures of it for Instagram, but any deep discussion or analysis of the film seems to be beside the point.

The main event over, Medine calls her driver. He’s one avenue away and offers to come pick her up, but she tells him she’s fine walking to him. She sends out one more Miu Miu tweet and puts away her phone. She has to wake up early to blog before heading to the Ralph Lauren show, where she has a front-row seat. "I used to feel embarrassed to sit front row at a show," she says later. "If I saw an editor I had admired for years seated in a row behind me, I was like, ’This is absurd!’ and I almost wanted to give them my seat. But I feel more and more like I deserve to be there and like my opinion is worth being heard."

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