If the pre-COVID-19 years could be dubbed the “age of the influencer”, referencing the rise and rise of attractive women – and some men – doing little more than posting selfies of their airbrushed lives on Instagram, then we could now be witnessing the era of the “anti-influencer”.

Taking centre stage in this reckoning are Matt Ford and Jack Steele, the tradies turned social media-skit comedians better known as The Inspired Unemployed. Since posting their first video to Instagram in 2019, the 20-somethings from Kiama on the NSW South Coast have been shaking fashion from its snobbery in a similar vein to Celeste Barber, the Australian comedian who lampoons outdated ideals of beauty and femininity to a global Instagram audience of 7.7 million.

And it seems brands are queuing up to work with Ford and Steele, who met as students at Kiama High School. Both were loud and clownish, with Steele being the “smart arse” to Ford’s “weirdo”. Last year, e-tailer The Iconic tapped The Inspired Unemployed to choreograph a three-minute “runway film”, which also starred international New Zealand-born model Georgia Fowler. This month, the pair feature prominently in David Jones’ menswear magazine and made their catwalk debut for the department store at the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

There’s also a deal with Levi’s, but for Ford and Steele, the goal from the start has been television. The duo are in talks with production companies; if you think it’s beginning to sound like the trajectory of another famous blokey duo, Hamish and Andy, you’d be right.

But Ford and Steele insist they’re forging their own path, balancing the corporate wooing with creating two videos a week for their 1.6 million followers across Instagram and TikTok. Though their early attempts lacked polish, it didn’t take long for The Inspired Unemployed to take off, especially after prominent influencer Brown Cardigan shared a video posted 18 months ago of them lip-synching to La Bouche’s 1992 dance-floor hit, Be My Lover.

Their videos have poked fun at people’s “iso” habits, beauty routines (including a handy plug for Go-To, the brand owned by Hamish Blake’s wife, Zoë Foster Blake) and wine wankery (sponsored by Jacob’s Creek), regularly chalking up more than one million views. They’re marketing gold, especially to brands chasing the 18- to 25-year-old market.

Today, however, the self-described battlers are at a crossroads. After all, how can two former tradies, whose everyday wardrobe is more Target than Tom Ford, stay true to their roots while chasing followers, fame and an income as social-media influencers? Can you do one without selling out the other?

“It was never in our vision to go into this [fashion] stuff,” insists 26-year-old Steele, a plasterer. During our Zoom chat, he’s wearing a grey shirt, collar askew. When it comes to most matters of style, he defers to carpenter Ford, 25, whose white bucket hat is a bit of an unintended fashion statement. “We were just making skitty videos, dancing around. But we thought, “Imagine if we could [do it wearing] Gucci,′ ” says Ford.

What began as a fashion joke has become serious business, especially after two Vogue staffers showed some of their videos to editor-in-chief Edwina McCann. Within a few months, Ford and Steele had a black-and-white spread in the glossy. Then came a digital cover for GQ Australia, which McCann also oversees. On the day they got the call about the deal, which was sponsored by Fendi, Steele was at work on a building site. “I remember saying, ‘Oh, that’s sick! Who’s Fendi?’ ”

“It is really bad for mental health to only see ‘perfect’ people living perfect lives … there’s no reality.”

McCann says that Australian fashion has been lacking fresh, male talent like The Inspired Unemployed for a long time. As the industry slowly embraces more “real” people, “there is this almost-reckoning of the fashion industry being able to poke fun at itself,” she says.

But how much of this authenticity is real, and to what degree is realness – particularly on social media – just another construct? Aren’t we all projecting something in every post we write, photograph or film?

Steele agrees that a lot of social-media content is manufactured, and therefore problematic. “It is really bad for mental health to only see ‘perfect’ people living perfect lives … there’s no reality.”

But how do they justify the Gucci coats? “[Until now] fashion has been pretty exclusive, like, ‘Only the real rich people can wear those kinds of brands,’ ” says Ford. “But they’re trying to make it inclusive ... we’re like the gateway … we’re pretty average humans, in this high-end stuff.”

Still, the guys can see the obvious disconnect between their lives of boardshorts and work boots, and stepping into high fashion. Which is, they say, why they knock back most sponsored offers. The key to not selling out, says Steele, is to never take the work too seriously.

“If we get 20 offers a day for work, we say no to at least 19. If it’s going to be fun and it aligns with us, then it’s a win-win. We want to stay true to ourselves.”

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