Dennis Todisco And Instagram Are Reviving Street Style In Menswear
Dennis Todisco, head of Instagram Streetwear and Sneaker Partnerships.
DAN FRANCO
By Cassell Ferere originally published on Forbes.com
Instagram has been the street for style for as long as the digital era has been streaming. Dennis Todisco has been mapping out his style since 2012 with @Outfitgrid, an Instagram he founded as a hobby to display his choice of attire for the day. Geometrically laying his clothing, sneakers, and accessory selection into a grid, Todisco immediately enticed his friends to do the same.
He researched and settled on a hashtag, #outfitgrid, and the rest is social media history. “I can't take credit for people laying their clothes down on the floor. But, I can take credit for creating the community around it,” Todisco claims. He highlighted one person who he thought put together the best outfit grid at 8 pm each night, and still does to this day.
Inspired by the kids in his neighborhood, Ken Griffey Jr., and the Fresh Prince, Todisco, a Boston native, got into streetwear early. He would find himself interning at the e-commerce retailer and blog, Karmaloop, then off to branding for the popular streetwear label Diamond Supply. Landing at Nike, he headed global digital marketing for social media where Todisco would work on the first Air Max Day.
By this point, Dennis Todisco would be working on the infamous SNKR app where sneakerheads would wait in a queue to purchase sought-after pairs of Nike sneakers and other exclusive collaborations. Todisco gives himself credit for creating the style-based community with @Outfitgrid boasting some 778,000 followers and helping streetwear form a bond with tech.
Todisco would bridge the gap between social media and businesses that essentially were silenced early on by users giving likes to influencers. Moving on to Twitter for the next four years, he would be the leader for their creative partnerships with influencers. Now, as Instagram's Streetwear and Sneaker Partnerships lead, Todisco has a birds-eye-view of all the fly street-stylers on the ‘gram.’
Instagram Insider, Fall 2021.
“The cool thing about Instagram is that people go on [Instagram] to connect with the things they love. Connect with the people they care about. Communities like @OutfitGrid have allowed people to come together over the shared love of fashion, over the shared sneakers - of style. It’s been a part of that influence of showing off. It is competitive. People want to have the newest thing - the coolest thing, the unreleased colorway,” Todisco boasts about the ability to share these ideas via Instagram…
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