The Influence Room Podcast: Changing the dialogue, Jenny and David Mustard
Our guests this week are Swedish YouTube couple, Jenny and David Mustard. Known for their minimalist aesthetic, they create content across Jenny's YouTube channel, Instagram, and website. We talk all things fashion, food, pop culture and sustainability.
Overview
Jenny and David started their working journey together when they created their vintage clothing brand. They were selling their own designs, with Jenny modelling the clothes. With so many people interested in Jenny, she decided to start an Instagram account. With this taking off, Jenny wanted to pursue her interest in food and started creating some vegan recipes. As David had studied Film/TV production they decided to turn these recipes into videos by setting up a Youtube account. After a month of having their account, Jenny went on to create a vegan cookbook.
A minimalist at heart, Jenny also creates content on simple ways her followers can understand and become a minimalist. She states that she wanted to be more and more simple, and is just trying to figure out ways of adjusting her lifestyle to make it as seamless and smooth as possible.
When talking all things sustainability, both Jenny and David discuss how they are global ambassadors for Polestar, who manufacture vegan cars. Additionally, they discuss how Greta Thunberg has been amazing in the climate change movement and is the voice we all needed. Further, in a discussion about the fashion industry, Jenny questions whether it will ever be possible to become a sustainable industry. However, Jenny and David both highlight that lots of brands are now becoming more ethical, and they are love working with these brands who uphold those values.
As well as all the different ventures they do together, they also have a morning podcast called The Mustards, and Jenny is in the process of writing a crime novel. She discusses how she intends to use her audience to see how they react to creative decisions, as they are the ones buying and reading the book.
Five quick takeaways:
- Biggest thing to sell is quality on Youtube videos. Quality is lower on Youtube because it is a lot harder to make videos.
- Magazines aren’t used as much anymore as social media is used to do more research for jobs in fashion content creators.
- In Sweden lots of people are no longer flying places as there is a group of people on social media ‘fly shaming’.
- People call themselves content creators as it is more understood than a ‘Youtuber’.
- The Swedish culture is all about having no hierarchy and everyone being super humble.
If you enjoyed this episode and don’t want to miss the rest of the series, you can follow The Influence Room Podcast on Spotify and Apple iTunes podcasts.
Full audio transcription
- Bronagh
Hello and welcome to The Influence Room podcast. This is the show that brings together brands, talent, influencers, and industry thought leaders to discuss what influence means from different viewpoints. Our guests this week are Swedish YouTube couple, Jenny and David mustard. Known for their minimalist aesthetic, they create content across Jenny's YouTube channel, Instagram, and website, as well as talking about topics such as fashion, food, pop culture and design on their morning show podcasts, The Mustards.
- Bronagh
In this episode we cover everything from the future of sustainable fashion, veganism, Greta Thunberg, to Jenny writing her first fiction book. Hope you enjoy the episode. Good morning and welcome to The Influence Room podcast. I'm back with Alex Payne.
- Alex Payne
Hello.
- Bronagh
You've been away for a little while.
- Alex Payne
Kon’nichiwa. Yes. Arigatou gozaimasu. I have had three amazing weeks in Japan with two rather boisterous characters. James Haskell and Mike Tindall. James Haskell is just suddenly ripping up trees in the jungle, so we're kind of a little bit nervous to see where that is going to end up. But Crikey Moses, Tokyo in Japan, what a place. Amazing tournament, but very nice to be back.
- Bronagh
Great.
- Alex Payne
Back to do the day job. How are you?
- Bronagh
I'm really good. I'm excited. I've got two brilliant content creators. We always... So to contextualise. I'm here with Jenny and David Mustard.
- Jenny
Hi.
- David Mustard
Hello.
- Bronagh
And we talk about how do you describe what you do? And for me, creator has always been a term that I've sort of used, because I'm very... My background was more focused on YouTube content creators, and creator is the word that they use. But then some people would just call them YouTubers. Some people now call them influencers. How do you describe yourselves?
- David Mustard
We describe ourselves as all of the above. Pretty much it depends on who you're talking to. But we try to take back, because the influencer word has like bad connotations a bit, but..
- Alex Payne
Couldn't agree more.
- David Mustard
But we're bringing it back.
- Jenny
Yeah. We are taking it back.
- David Mustard
So we call ourselves influencers, just like Picasso. Who cares?
- Alex Payne
So you've gone through the toxicity of it, and you're redefining it back again.
- David Mustard
Yeah. You can say that.
- Jenny
I think we need a new chance-
- Alex Payne
Sort of pseudo niche.
- David Mustard
Yeah, exactly.
- Jenny
Because I feel like, content creator it's more of like the guys of the influencer world are trying to get as far away from girls showing their outfits and doing makeup, kind of which I'm more like the influences.
- David Mustard
Well the content creators also, it seems like when people say that it seems like they're a bit ashamed that they're YouTubers, and not on TV. So they're like, "I'm a content creator," and it's like, "Hey YouTuber. Come on." I don't mind it at all actually. But it's like there's... We call ourselves whatever feels right for the moment kind of.
- Alex Payne
I like that.
- Bronagh
But do you feel that will change? Because I know a lot of people who've sort of... Particularly in the US who've kind of broken into more of the entertainment space, and they do go on kind of talk shows, and they say, "If your career started off on Netflix, you would never be called a Netflixer, you're still part of an entertainment sphere, whereas a YouTuber is so... Why is it that it's so platform dependent when you create content on YouTube?"
- Jenny
Well I think the first kind of influencer job was the blogger. So people still call themselves bloggers when they're Instagramers for example, even though they don't even have a blog, because that's kind of the term that I feel like annoyed the first term for what we're doing. So the influencer kind of just came to encapsulate YouTubers, Instagramers, podcasters, whatever. So I feel like it's more broad.
- David Mustard
And it was a word that people could understand. We said, blogger when your blog was the smallest platform we had. We still said blogger, because people were like, "Okay, yes." If we said YouTuber they were like, "What do you mean?" Yeah. It's so easy to explain kind of.
- Bronagh
Yeah. And who would you say were the people that influenced you both growing up?
- David Mustard
I don't know I-
- Jenny
To become influencers ourselves, or just in general?
- Bronagh
Just in general.
- David Mustard
I don't have anyone that I look up to.
- Jenny
Michel J. Fox, David, come on.
- David Mustard
Yeah, like Michael J. Fox.
- Alex Payne
Marty McFly himself.
- David Mustard
No. But it's like there was no one. I was like, I don't know. I never had high expectations for myself pretty much. So I never looked up to some-
- Jenny
That is so sad.
- David Mustard
Yeah. It's very sad, but it's like-
- Alex Payne
What were you into though? Were you into music, or film, or schools, or-
- David Mustard
I was playing sports. I've always been into film, and sure, a director or two, but I... It's not like I'm like, "That's the person I'm going to be." Yeah. Not for me.
- Jenny
You always has a thing for Tupac as well.
- David Mustard
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
- Alex Payne
I've just been watching that Unsolved on Netflix. Have you seen that?
- David Mustard
No, I haven't.
- Alex Payne
You should have a look. It's very good actually.
- David Mustard
Is that the TV show-
- Alex Payne
It's a sort of dramatic recreation of the story of Biggie and Tupac.
- David Mustard
Yeah. You're following the police officers.
- Alex Payne
Yeah.
- David Mustard
I've seen the-
- Alex Payne
It's good actually.
- David Mustard
... first episode. Yeah, it was really good. I was like, "Wow."
- Alex Payne
What about you Jenny, who were the people, or the things that you were into when you were younger?
- Jenny
Well, I've also always been into like movies, and reading and kind of the creative stuff as well. But I swear I don't like... I never had a person that kind of, you know, I had as a hero, or anything. I think probably it's like the Swedish culture, we don't really go in for like the heros, the legends those kinds of things.
- David Mustard
Yeah. The Swedish culture is all about putting each other down. So it's like-
- Jenny
Yeah. Being supper flat. No hierarchy at all.
- David Mustard
Yeah. Exactly. So if someone is very successful you can't say, "Wow, that guy is so successful." You just have to be like, "Oh well-"
- Jenny
Everyone wants to be super humble all the time.
- Alex Payne
Zlatan has managed to rise through that, hasn't he?
- Jenny
He is the enigma of the... I think he's like-
- Alex Payne
Of the world.
- Jenny
Well, of Sweden anyway. I feel like he... Like all of the bragging-ness of Sweden kind of just boil down into a person, and that's Zlatan.
- David Mustard
It's such a love hate relationship with him in Sweden.
- Alex Payne
Really?
- David Mustard
Yeah. It's like, because everyone's like, "Oh, the greatest Swedish football player of all time, and will probably be the best player of all time forever in Sweden." But people are like, "He's not really Swedish, because he's so cocky and he..."
- Alex Payne
I love that. I love the fact... Yeah, I can see why there would be a bit of a wrestle with where he fits into the Swedish cycle.
- Jenny
But I think... Is it that why he is the best football player, because he is so cocky. He believes in himself more than anyone else does.
- David Mustard
Yeah. I just read a headline saying he's leaving his football club now, LA Galaxy and he's like, "You can go back to watching baseball now."
- Alex Payne
Yeah. He is certainly an enigma.
- Bronagh
And so then let's kind of move into how you got into the career that you're doing now. So did you say the blog was the first thing?
- Jenny
No. No. It started... I mean-
- David Mustard
Clothing brand.
- Jenny
Clothing brand.
- Bronagh
Okay.
- Jenny
That's where it started.
- David Mustard
You can say that. 2011 Jenny was like, "I can't work for people. I need to do my own thing."
- Jenny
I cannot be employed.
- David Mustard
Yeah. So we started our clothing brand. First vintage clothes, and then like we started selling our own designs.
- Jenny
Just online.
- David Mustard
Yeah. Jenny was modeling all the clothes, so people became interested, "Who is Jenny?" And she-
- Jenny
Started an Instagram account.
- David Mustard
Yeah. You started an Instagram account, and then we were like, "Should we make some vegan recipe videos, just because-"
- Jenny
We didn't.
- David Mustard
No.
- Jenny
You did.
- David Mustard
Yeah, just because I-
- Alex Payne
How did you leap from clothing, to vegan recipes. These are the passion points, or was there spotting of an opportunity?
- Jenny
Yes. So food is... I'm a big foodie, and I always love creating my own recipes, and being vegan, and healthy and stuff. And David studied film and TV production, so David wanted to make videos. We saw this other vegan girl that I was following on Facebook, and Tumblr, whatever it was those days. And she just made a vegan pancake video and put on her Facebook and I was like, "This is cool David." And David was like, "Let's do it." And then we started-
- David Mustard
We started making some vegan cooking videos.
- Jenny
I was reluctant being in front of the camera. I've always been. It's weird, because taking photos for the websites, or the... Our clothing website, and then being in front of the camera YouTube. I've always been so reluctant, and David always had to nag me to do it.
- David Mustard
Because I'm not going to be the person that's out in front. So I'm like, "Jenny, will you go ahead?"
- Jenny
But as soon as I started doing it, and every kind of new thing, I started doing from taking photos, to doing cooking videos, to then started speaking in front of the camera. As soon as I started, it just like after 20 minutes you just relax and then it's just fun.
- Alex Payne
Can I just really quickly ask. What is the story of the two of you that leads us into where you are now?
- Jenny
We have been... How long have you been together for?
- David Mustard
13 years.
- Jenny
Yeah.
- Alex Payne
Well done.
- Jenny
It is kind of an accomplishment I have to say. But yeah, so we've always-
- David Mustard
For a long time we always wanted to work together, instead of doing our separate thing and meeting up in the evenings, so-
- Jenny
Yeah. Life is so short. I feel like I want to spend as many minutes as possible with David. I don't want to spend all our days apart, and then just have the weekends. It feels depressing.
- Alex Payne
That's is incredible. I wish my wife would say something so nice. I think she would probably wish I was working a lot harder than I am.
- Bronagh
No. I cannot work with my husband. No.
- Alex Payne
All right. And you met, and got together in Sweden, or you met over here or...
- David Mustard
We met in Sweden. And then Jenny studied for three years, and then we moved to London for four years, then back to Sweden for two. Berlin three years, and then now we're back in London again. So we've been moving around a lot, and just like building up our business in the last five years, basically our YouTube business.
- Jenny
And now David has said that, "No more moving."
- Alex Payne
I'm was going to say, so is London the home?
- David Mustard
Yes. Yes.
- Jenny
This is it.
- David Mustard
This is the permanent thing now. London.
- Jenny
For a few years. For a lot of years.
- David Mustard
Yes. For a lot of years.
- Jenny
For a lot of years. At least.
- Alex Payne
And this... I mean that's fascinating context for where you are now, as opposed to the way that you're building up what you do. So to jump back to the point, I suppose where you were saying right YouTube we're going to try a few things. How quickly did it take off from that point?
- David Mustard
Well after like a month of YouTube, Jenny was like, "I want to make a cookbook." And so she did a... What is it called when you...
- Jenny
Like a synopsis.
- David Mustard
A synopsis that you sent out, and the day after you sent it out, they got back to you from a very prestigious book.
- Jenny
Publisher in Sweden.
- David Mustard
Publisher. Yeah.
- Bronagh
How big was your audience at that time?
- David Mustard
Well, like-
- Jenny
3000 maybe.
- David Mustard
No, no, no, no.
- Jenny
Not even?
- David Mustard
No. It was-
- Jenny
12-
- David Mustard
... 700.
-Jenny
No, no, no.
- David Mustard
Yeah, because we didn't even have a thousand on YouTube.
- Jenny
Really?
- David Mustard
Yeah. Yeah. But they-
- Jenny
But on Instagram-
- David Mustard
But we had-
- Jenny
.. we had a few thousand.
- David Mustard
Maybe, but we had good content basically. So we could... Yeah. They were... And they didn't really look at numbers, because back then people didn't really know what to look for.
- Jenny
Yeah. Sure.
- David Mustard
So they were like, "Oh, good content. Yeah."
- Jenny
Let's do it.
- David Mustard
"We can make a book out of this."
- Jenny
Yeah. It was just like good timing, because they... Veganism was becoming such a trend, on social media. So they wanted to make a vegan cookbook, and then they had looked up another blogger guy, and asked him, and then two days later I got in touch and then I got the-
- David Mustard
They dropped him.
- Jenny
Yeah. I got... Yeah.
- Alex Payne
For real.
- Jenny
Yeah. I heard about that later.
- David Mustard
We don't know who he is, but the vegan community in Sweden, it's tiny. So it's like-
- Jenny
Yeah. There might be a Swedish vegan blogger with like-
- David Mustard
He was very angry.
- Jenny
Yeah. Not nice feelings towards me.
- Bronagh
Because I was going to say, I feel like vintage fashion and veganism 10 years ago is not the big business that it is now. So I think it's interesting that those are kind of the topics that kind of you honed in on as part of your brand, and that has really fed into your longevity, because it's... You are so invested in those areas.
- Bronagh
It's not something that you've just stumbled upon, because it's popular now. When you started the vintage fashion brand, is that something that you felt that it was still quite a niche market, or-
- Jenny
I mean, we lived here London and all my friends were kind of into fashion, or music, or something, or people I knew were selling vintage stuff on Bricklane. So for me that was my world. For me it was big. So I thought it was big business already back then, but probably it wasn't. Probably just was my environment.
- David Mustard
And we never really gone after things that are like, "This is going to blow up."
- Jenny
We've just been lucky.
- David Mustard
We've just been like, "Oh." We were vegans for seven years before we started doing vegan cooking videos. So it was like, "Oh, it is just natural." And it's like, "Oh people," and more and more people became vegan. So we were like, "Oh, this might work."
- Jenny
It was also like so lucky, because I'm a minimalist at heart. I've always been kind of like, I want to simplify everything. And we've been doing the vegan cooking videos, and I said, "David, I want to make a video where I just talk about minimalism, because it's something that I find so fascinating." And he's like, "Who's going to watch that? No one cares." And I'm like,
- David Mustard
I was wrong.
- Jenny
"Yeah, I know, but I just want to do for my sake." He's like, "Okay, let's just do it. Who cares if the video tanks?" And then we, we did that video and it blew up. And it was the single reason why we like-
- David Mustard
Yeah. How to become a minimalist.
- Jenny
So we grew from under 20,000 to 120,000 in a year subscribers.
- David Mustard
In six months I think even.
- Jenny
Yeah. So that was the reason why we could have this as a job both of us.
- David Mustard
Yeah. Exactly.
- Alex Payne
Can I pick up on just two things? The first is the veganism. We've done pods before with Flora Beverly actually, which was very interesting. And she is very much a sort of a health, and fitness, and wellness influencer. And that is such an occupied space now. It's quite competitive, and there are a lot of people. Is the expression throwing shade? I don't know.
- Alex Payne
But it's quite a... There are a lot of opinions flying around. I just wondering in the sort of the vegan space, having been vegans for quite some time and almost having been one of the sort of pioneers of the vegan movement where do you... Is that fair?
- Jenny
Swedish humblers.
- Alex Payne
Swedish humblers. I will give you the credit where credit is due.
- Jenny
You are making us cringe over here. You are making us sweaty.
- Alex Payne
But having got to... I suppose having been one of the start of the movement, how do you see that landscape now, and do you see other people who've come later, and you disagree with what they do? Or is it quite a sort of-
- Jenny
We are the wrong-
- Alex Payne
... a bonded community?
- Jenny
I would say we are the wrong people to ask, because we stay away kind of from the community a lot.
- David Mustard
But we know a lot of people that are really vegan YouTubers, and they're in that whole world. There's a lot of drama back and forth, and stuff. We just been able to like be on the outskirts of that, and be like-
- Jenny
Yeah. We don't engage.
- David Mustard
"Hey, vegan is most cool." And people were like, "Yeah, sure. Fine."
- Jenny
The same with minimalism. We don't... We're not here for the drama. So we just... We stay away as soon as it becomes... As soon as a community start having heated conversations, we kind of just back out a little bit, and stay clear. So I don't really know how the vegan community with the influencers, what that's like today.
- David Mustard
Yeah. And we've been vegans for so long, so it's like... It's not like, "Oh, I'm vegan." It's such a big part of our... It's just, it's so natural for us. It's not something that we think about.
- Jenny
Or discuss all the time.
- David Mustard
But, some people are so into veganism, because... What is it called when you're new to a religion?
- Jenny
Yeah. You kind of like-
- Alex Payne
Convert or a-
- David Mustard
Yeah. Exact-
- Jenny
Yeah. At first when you.
-David Mustard
Newly converted.
- Jenny
Yes. Usually you're more passionate in the beginning of when you adapt something new, like a new lifestyle or-
- David Mustard
So those people are the loudest and they can grow the movement, and do whatever they want. We're just vegans in the background.
- Alex Payne
Which I suppose leads very nicely to the minimalist element that you've described. It wouldn't be very minimalist to be shouting, and screaming about the things that you like.
- Jenny
That's true.
- Alex Payne
Tell me about minimalism. Where did that come from? It's obviously got a Swedish thing I imagine, but why did minimalism becomes such a big thing for you?
- Jenny
It didn't become. I think it was just always my natural state, but I didn't have a word for it. So when I heard someone, I don't know... I don't remember who it was, but I heard someone talking about it, and that guy... I think I read a blog post, and it just clicked for me like, "Oh, this is the word I need," because I've always used the word simple, that I want things to be simple in every part of my life.
- Jenny
I wanted to be more and more simple, and just trying to figure out ways of adjusting my lifestyle to make it as kind of seamless and smooth as possible. So I don't waste energy on stuff that I don't really care about. So it's not like... I think for most people when they get into minimalism, if they are interested, it's mostly about like, "Oh, my space is so cluttered. I have too many clothes, or I never... My home is always messy," and they come in from like materialistic side.
- David Mustard
Yeah you have to declutter everything.
- Jenny
Yeah. But for me it goes through everything like money, my mental state, just like how I write, how I eat. It's just always there in the background kind of, "Can I make this simpler? Am I wasting energy? Am I wasting money?" That kind of thing.
- David Mustard
Yeah. Make everything simpler. And when we started with that on YouTube, there were like, I don't know. Two or three channels that did minimalism, and now there's probably a thousand. So it's a-
-Jenny
We were lucky there as well. It's like very early.
- David Mustard
Yeah. It was just like, "Whoops, we just... Oh, lucky us, that we picked a topic that no one else did." And we-
- Jenny
And people were interested.
- David Mustard
And people were interested. Yeah.
- Alex Payne
I can't believe that.
- Bronagh
What I find quite interesting is that sort of that approach I guess is quite the opposite to what influencer marketing is all about. Influencers can constantly get paid to promote new products. And it's kind of, there has been this sort of influx of, I mean social media has bred fast fashion. It's sort of built for that.
- Bronagh
They can constantly put up new collections every single day. And I guess that must be something that then you guys are so aware of that you always have to be advocates for that as much as possible, because there is this whole other space that you guys work in.
- Jenny
I think this is the one kind of aspect of my life where I feel like there's the biggest kind of clash, or it's hard... The hardest thing to navigate because it is my job. Fashion is my job and-
- David Mustard
And you love fashion.
- Jenny
Yeah. It's such a hobby for me. So I would say that if you look at my... If you look at our home, like my wardrobe is the least minimalist thing, because I do love clothes and I do that expressing myself through fashion. David is into DVDs. So it's like-
- David Mustard
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
- Jenny
... takes up much less space.
- David Mustard
I buy a lot of DVDs, and Blu-rays blue. So it's like, that's not the minimalist part of me. It's like clothes just takes up space.
- Jenny
But it doesn't really.
- David Mustard
No.
- Jenny
I mean.
- David Mustard
Not compared to clothes.
- Jenny
It is like... Yeah. So and also as you say to make money, we need to promote brands, and that's just an aspect of our job that we have to accept, because all of our content is free. So it's like we need to pay our rent somehow. And this is... We do it through advertising, and we work with some incredible brands that we love to work with.
- Jenny
And one thing that has been so fun to see these last three years is that more and more brands that have a sustainable or ethical side to their business, has become big enough that they actually have budgets to do social media marketing. So whenever we find a brand like that, we kind of dig in our teeth, and just stick to them.
- David Mustard
And it's so fun to see how everyone that emails us today, big brands, small brands, they're all using the word sustainable in the emails pretty much. And that didn't happen two years ago. There was like only weird small sustainable brands, but now it's like...
- Alex Payne
That sounds sad.
- David Mustard
Like Hemp clothing.
- Alex Payne
Yeah exactly.
- David Mustard
But now it's like every email is like, "Okay, so we're focusing on this sustainable collection, and it's sustainable in one way, or another." And it's just fun to see that it's growing so fast.
- Alex Payne
How much digging do you do into how sustainable they are? I mean, how important is it to you that if someone says I'm sustainable, that they are actually doing what they say they are?
- David Mustard
Very little thing.
- Alex Payne
Really?
- David Mustard
Yeah. It's a-
- Jenny
This is not really possible. I mean maybe it is possible if you have a person who works with that for you, but there's no chance we could investigate that work.
- David Mustard
Yeah. And we can't investigate the where, like if they say, "Oh, this is how we do it." We're taking them for their word, pretty much.
- Jenny
Yeah. We are trusting them.
- Bronagh
But you look quite a lot into materials.
- Jenny
What do you mean?
- Bronagh
You wouldn't wear a brand that uses materials that you don't agree with.
- Jenny
Yeah, I mean, especially for the vegan side.
- Bronagh
Exactly.
- Jenny
But then again, it's like if I ask a beauty brand like, "Is this vegan, and cruelty-free and whatever," and they say, "yes." Then I'm trusting them. It's like I can't like call the factory and visit, or whatever.
- David Mustard
And a lot of the brands that contact us nowadays say, "Oh it's vegan and cruelty-free. Look, we have the logo on the packaging," and we're like, "Oh, good."
- Jenny
Good enough for us.
- David Mustard
Great. Yes.
- Alex Payne
I would have thought it was quite good content opportunities though to investigate, I don't know.
- David Mustard
Yeah definitely.
- Alex Payne
That’s one from next week.
- Jenny
I'm not sure like... Because we've been talking about this as well, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to find brands who would invite us to their... How willing they are to show kind of their factories, or how they work. I'm not sure how many secrets there are with branding and stuff.
- David Mustard
Only the brands that are actually super sustainable would.
- Alex Payne
Yes.
- Jenny
But I'm talking more about brand secrets in other ways.
- David Mustard
Oh yeah, yeah. That as well.
- Alex Payne
Can I just ask just another quick question about the brands that approach you. What sort of percentages in the categories that you operate in? So how many brands come to you and say, "We really want to tap into your minimalist audience, or to your vegan audience, or to your fashion audience, or to..." Where does that balance sit, and how is that possibly changed.
- David Mustard
Minimalist very little. Yeah. Like 1%.
- Jenny
I would say the two things that we are selling content on is fashion stuff, and that could be like hair care, or beauty, or whatever. But then-
- David Mustard
And then they focus on sustainability and veganism, when they contact us.
- Alex Payne
Right.
- Jenny
But the biggest thing we can sell is the quality of our YouTube videos. So it doesn't really matter what we talk about, it is what it looks like. I think the... On Instagram for example, the competition is incredible. I mean there's so many extremely talented photographers, and stylists, and stuff on Instagram, but on YouTube it's still like the quality like-
- David Mustard
The quality is lower because it's so much harder to make videos, and there's two of us, if there's only one, it's so much harder to make a video.
- Jenny
Yeah. It's so hard.
- David Mustard
So I think that, that's what really makes us stand out that we have kind of... If you compare it, and I'm going to be a little bit Swedish humble again, and just in comparison to some of the other stuff on YouTube, our quality's quite good.
- Bronagh
I was chatting to a friend of mine last night, she's at this advertising conference in Vegas at the minute, quite randomly, and they were kind of talking about fashion publications, and how sort of the fashion magazine can continue to operate, and-
- Alex Payne
Can or can't?
- Bronagh
Can.
- Alex Payne
Can.
- Bronagh
And one of the questions that she was WhatsApping me was "Why have fashion influencers not banded together to create their own editorial?" If there is this tension between say, the Vogues of the world and bloggers. But the thing that I sort of find interesting was are those magazines actually influential to fashion influencers any more, like do we really need those publication?
- Jenny
Yeah. True. I agree with you.
- David Mustard
All the influencers are looking at each other. And well, of course the magazines as well. But okay, I'm not the expert. Jenny, go ahead.
- Jenny
No but I mean if I look at myself, I sometimes buy a fashion magazine but I don't have time to read it. I might flip through on an airplane, but if I... For research for my own job, why would I look at a magazine when I can look at my-
- David Mustard
Instagram.
- Jenny
... direct yeah. My kind of direct counterpart, the Instagrammers. So that's where I go.
- Bronagh
I sort of wonder will they even... How will they even exist in five years? Will there-
- Jenny
Well, I saw someone talking about it like a few days ago about it being more... Becoming more and more like I'm publishing fewer times, PDF thicker, making it more like in a book form.
- David Mustard
Premium content.
- Jenny
So making it more like a Lux kind of something you want to own, not just something you want to flip through and then recycle.
- Alex Payne
I think a lot of these things are cyclical as well. I think there's a huge dent being put into those kinds of publications at the moment by Instagrammers and influences. But you look at... It's almost a bit like vinyl, I think Vogue, and those big Conde Nast titles will work a way out, and then work a way around it and come back in a sort of, I think you're absolutely right. I think it'll be a more premium, perhaps slightly less regular publication.
- Bronagh
Because I guess my line of thinking was, Vogue do a sustainable issue, and they'll do one sustainable issue, but then every other issue I guess is not sustainable. So it's kind of I can beg high fashion publications sort of seem to be advocates of this movement, but then actually everything that they're doing again is feeding into this selling new products. I just think the fashion industry has gone through such a state of flux at the minute, because-
- Jenny
But do you think it's impossible for the fashion industry to ever be a sustainable industry, because the whole fashion industry is about trends, and buying new stuff that you don't really need. Should we not just accept the fact that the fashion industry is kind of like a luxury thing that you treat yourself besides being sustainable in other ways. Do you know what I mean?
- Bronagh
I feel like it's legislation though that needs to be put in place, because whenever I watch David Attenborough programs, you just like, "Oh how is this being allowed to happen?" But it's because there are no laws in place to stop that happening. So there has to-
- Jenny
Even if there is like a much more sustainable production, and everything, it's still the fact... Inherent into the industry is that you should buy new stuff that you don't really need. That's like the whole point.
- Bronagh
Capitalism.
- Alex Payne
The sustainable movement will begin to envelop the fashion industry. I mean look at how far we've come in terms of plastics in the last... I'm not going to say 18 months, but two three years, whatever it is. Plastics is now a huge hot topic, and I have gone from buying bottled water every day to actually do you know I'm going to recycle my coffee cup kind of thing.
- Alex Payne
And I think what will happen is that as that becomes more and more the norm, and as you are more and more conscious of that, the next thing to come will be fashion, or whatever it is. I think the fashion industry will come under more and more pressure-
- Jenny
For sure.
- Alex Payne
To deliver what people are, and to adapt to the way that people now think.
- Jenny
I mean it's already happening. We talked to... We went to the press days a few... Last week I think, or something. We went to a few different brands, and all of them are talking about like, "Our next collection is 80% sustainable. Our next collection is 70% sustainable." Like they're actually counting in percentage. It's not like how... Which is amazing, and something that just a year ago we wouldn't hear so-
- David Mustard
But it's like everything is moving so quickly. In Sweden it's all about flying. You can't fly anymore. It's like the fly shaming, or whatever it's called. It's a super big thing in Sweden. There's this Instagram account that's really big that just shames famous people, and influencers that fly pretty much. It's the whole thing. So it's very Swedish to put down the people that are famous, but it's like... The whole account, it has hundreds of thousands of followers and just the shaming people who fly.
- Jenny
I was talking friend in Sweden the other day like, "When are you coming to visit?" She's like, "I would, but I don't want to waste my mileage this year on a trip to London." She's actually not going to visit me, because of flying.
- David Mustard
Yeah, of course. It's tiny, tiny percentage. It's very loud, but it's a tiny, tiny percentage that's like, "No, I'm not going to fly."
- Alex Payne
The other thing I'm just going to add to the sort of sustainability conversation is the labels. There are some incredible things you can do now. So there is a swimming trunk company called NAECO, which is ocean backwards, and they take plastic from the ocean, recycle it into swimming trunks.
- Alex Payne
And I think that that is where the fashion industry will go, is that they will have to find ways of being really, really clever, and hoovering up wastage in one corner, and turning it into something amazing and the other, and that's where they'll get real buy in. So I just wonder whether as technology advances that is where the story is going to go.
- Bronagh
We've talked about that before, I mean I'm very interested in mushroom leather. Will mushroom leather still look okay in 5 years.
- Alex Payne
Delicious. That sounds... You have that over pasta.
- Jenny
I talked to one of the... A head of marketing for a really big luxury brand last week, and she said that they are investing in mushroom leather. And she has seen like a prototype. It's not like for sale yet the bag. But she saw the prototype of the bag, and she said that she wouldn't. Maybe she looked super close, but just seeing that issue, she couldn't tell the difference.
- David Mustard
I've seen a lot of pineapple leather, and that still looks a bit weird but maybe in a couple of years it looks so normal.
- Alex Payne
Just as a pineapple.
- Jenny
Choosing pineapple leather.
- David Mustard
Yeah exactly. No, but there's someone in Mexico doing leather out of cactuses, or something like that. So there are possibilities for all of that.
- Alex Payne
That's extraordinary.
- Bronagh
And you guys were just announced recently as the global ambassadors for Polestar. Is that right?
- Jenny
That's true.
- Alex Payne
Wow.
- Bronagh
Because that's the new luxury electric vehicle.
- David Mustard
Yeah. Vegan electric vehicle, because they only have... They have vegan interiors in the car.
- Alex Payne
Wow.
- David Mustard
No leather seats.
- Bronagh
But that's if you think of like the automotive industry that has been so... It does not give a blip about the environment, and now they’re completely having to.
- David Mustard
I know.
- Jenny
When we were there and met the team. The Polestar team, they say like, "Oh, we don't see ourselves as a car company. We see ourselves as like a tech design company. So it's like they're not even seeing themselves as like, "Oh we produce vehicles." They see themselves as, "Oh wait, let's design something cool, and put a bunch of stuff, and tech in it." Kind of...
- Alex Payne
And what's really interesting about the automotive industry is that those who are being slow to react are losing ground massively. I mean, look at the problems JLR are having.
- Bronagh
Oh I know.
- Alex Payne
People are turning away from it. And I think where do you... So this is the question, where do you think we are in that sort of conscious acknowledgement of the need for change right now? Are we 10%, 20% towards it? I mean how much more as a population have we got there.
- Jenny
I mean-
- Alex Payne
Is that something that you're interested and concerned about?
- Jenny
I mean we have our audience. That's our contact or our... How we reach into the world. We see the world through our audience kind of, because..
- Bronagh
What do they care about most?
- Jenny
All audience cares about...
- David Mustard
Veganism.
- Jenny
Feminism, sustainability, and coziness. That's about it.
- Alex Payne
And coziness?
- David Mustard
I guess that's 1% of the population, or something. But its like what we see as 100%-
- Jenny
We are like super positive for the future. We are like, "Oh man. Your manager is great."
- David Mustard
Everyone is like this.
- Alex Payne
That's it... I mean that's interesting though. I mean do you... What is your outlook for... So I was reading today by the year 20... It was an article in the newspaper by the year 2090, the temperature on planet earth will have gone up by four degrees, which will have catastrophic impact for our children, and our children's children. There seems to be a lot of doom and gloom at the moment.
- Alex Payne
And actually the David Attenborough program I watched probably about two or three months ago, can't remember what it was, but it was brilliantly constructed, and it was an hour long program. And the first half an hour was we're all going off the edge of a cliff here. This is absolutely desperate and the second half an hour was, but hang on actually we are making progress in these areas. So it sort of hit you for six, and then said, but we are trying to sort it out.
- Jenny Mustard
But wasn't it like... Was it like a year ago, or two years ago when they said like, "This is the final day."
- Alex Payne
Yes.
- Jenny Mustard
"If we're going to change stuff, it needs to be before this date."
- Alex Payne
Yes.
- Jenny Mustard
So I feel like after that date passed, I used kind of didn't read anymore forecasts I was like...
- Alex Payne
Right. That’s it we are all done.
- Jenny
I'm going to try to do my bit, but I prefer not to know how deep of a shit we are in.
- David Mustard
And it's like we have a platform so we can talk about it, and stuff. But politicians need to do things.
- Bronagh
Yeah. That's it. I mean it's the government, it's their job. And that's what's so frustrating because I mean, particularly in the UK-
- David Mustard
What does the green party have here like, three, 3,4%.
- Bronagh
Yeah. I mean it's... There is a very small, small group of people who come from very, very privileged backgrounds, who are not experiencing what the wider British occupation is-
- Alex Payne
It doesn't help when the most powerful man in the free world is removing carbon emissions and controls. What is the view sort of the... Of Gretta Thornburg. Talking of influence.
- David Mustard
Yeah. She's amazing.
- Jenny
Yeah. She is.
- David Mustard
I remember when it first started, because I saw the headlines in Sweden, and that was way before the rest of the world side obviously. And it was just like one girl not going to school on Fridays and sitting outside parliament for the weekend.
- Jenny
Would you say that she's like the new Zlatan, like one of the few Swedish heroes that actually are heroes?
- David Mustard
Exactly. No, but I love what she's doing. I love everything. She's getting hate from all the wrong people, but it's...
- Jenny
She’s really brave.
- David Mustard
What you say it's like it's amazing what she's doing. It's just amazing, and yeah.
- Jenny
It's just weird. I feel like the stuff she's saying is so like, "Of course. Obviously. Yes." And still people have some... still people complain.
- David Mustard
Yeah, exactly. When we've talked about whatever it is, veganism or something on YouTube, much smaller platform. We've noticed how people react to that and it's a similar thing that people are like thinking that you're saying something revolutionary when it's like, "Oh, this is just basic knowledge and facts pretty much." And I feel the same way with her. What she's saying. It's like, "Well, we know all this. We just needed a voice for it." And she is that voice I'm guessing.
- Alex Payne
That's extraordinary influence, isn't it? I mean, we talk a lot on this pod just about how, it's why we started really, the word influencer has become defined by what's your Instagram following, and your engagement rate. But actually influence is the ability to sit outside of parliamentary building at the age of 10, 11, 12, whatever she was, and now suddenly be front, and center of a global conversation. That is extraordinary power.
- David Mustard
And in Sweden we call every celebrity influencer at the moment, like even TV people are called influencers.
- Jenny
Really?
- David Mustard
Not just like that, but like-
- Jenny
If they have an Instagram account.
- David Mustard
Yeah, exactly. But there's like more and more people that are... I don't know. Like Jonathan Ross, but in Sweden. It's like, "Well, he's kind of an influencer," that's a... They are like same thing-
- Jenny
I think that's interesting that like-
- David Mustard
..is to everyone is an influencer.
- Jenny
Yeah because it's like you actually think about what the word means and applying it accordingly. Of course, if you are... It doesn't matter if you're on TV or-
- David Mustard
Is Boris an influencer?
- Jenny
Well, yeah. Of course he is.
- Bronagh
I guess he is.
- Jenny
I don't know, maybe he would call himself a creator.
- Bronagh
But that's it. I guess it's using that word influence to empower people in some way empower, or entertain, or educate and to kind of drive that forward, rather than this sort of like marketing term that it's become. I'm conscious of time, so I just wanted to kind of chat a little bit about your book that you're writing, and sort of this next chapter that you're moving into. How have you find that process and tell us a little bit about what it is?
- Jenny
So I mean, it's very early days. I don't want to... I don't know. I feel a little bit freaked out even talking about it. But I just wrote a crime novel just for the fun of it. For the last year and a half, I took a big break in the middle, which I think was good, because I feel like in the middle of the book that's where you kind of lose interest.
- Jenny
So then I came back after nine months of a break, and I had new energy, and then I finished it. So now it's done. I mean I'm still editing, I'm in that part of the process, which is I thought it was going to be excruciating, but I'm quite enjoying it actually. It's fun.
- Bronagh
And you've used your channel as well. You've been interacting with your audience-
- Jenny
Yes.
- Bronagh
... on it, which I find quite interesting, a writer having that sort of feedback-
- Alex Payne
Input yeah.
- Bronagh
... access.
- David Mustard
What should we call this character? And it's like oh, we get hundreds of comments on like what the character should be called.
- Jenny
I want to do that more, if we self-publish, or if we go with a publisher, whatever we're going to do with this, I want to test a few different covers on people, and see what they react to, and like the title and stuff. I just want to... Because I mean my audience are the people who are going to buy the book. I hope so. I want them to have their say as well.
- Bronagh
I almost wonder, imagine if JK Rowling had, had a social media platform. Should I call him Harry, or should I call him-
- Alex Payne
Gary.
- Bronagh
Gary.
- Alex Payne
Gary Porter. What a very different story that would have been.
- Jenny
That is so good.
- Bronagh
But so to kind of wrap up for any of our listeners who maybe don't follow you, where can they find you?
- Jenny
So my YouTube channel is our biggest channel. It's called Jenny Mustard. I'm also Jenny Mustard on Instagram. We also have a podcast called The Mustards, and an Instagram account also called The Mustard, so-
- David Mustard
That's what we do, right?
- Jenny
Yeah, I think that's it.
- Alex Payne
Can I ask, does anyone ever call you the colonel?
- David Mustard
No. No. Jenny sometimes calls herself so.
- Alex Payne
I think that's a very big missed opportunity. I think you were missing a chunk of your life. I think you should start referring to yourself as-
- David Mustard
Colonel Mustard.
- Alex Payne
... Colonel Mustard with a lead piping in the library.
- David Mustard
Yeah, we say Colonel sometimes. It has happened.
- Jenny
Or Dijon.
- David Mustard
Dijon Mustard.
- Alex Payne
I like that. It's good when you are abroad.
- David Mustard
Yes exactly. For the French.
- Bronagh
Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
- Jenny
Thanks so much for having us. This was fun.
- David Mustard
Yeah.
- Alex Payne
You are really enjoyable. And very best of luck with everything.
- Jenny
Thank you.
- Alex Payne
We'll keep our eyes peeled.
- David Mustard
Thank you.
- Bronagh
Thank you to you too. Thank you so much for listening to The Influence Room podcast. If you want to learn more about the site, you can follow us on Instagram @theinfluence room, and check out our website, and become a member if you're not already. We are really excited to hear about what you're doing, what you're passionate about, the stories you want to tell, and become part of the Contra Economy.
