From fake books to fruit candles – How Instagram fuelled the rise of imitation homeware
telegraph.co.uk– suddenly we’re all stars in our own version of a reality show and our concept of projected reality Vs actual lived experience changes forever.As the pandemic took hold in March last year, and our worlds grew smaller, with the majority of us confined to the four walls of our flats and houses, capacity for that sought-after ‘authentic’ lived experience shrank.
Our homes, and everything in them, became the centre of our universe and the need to optimise them became apparent. In fact, shopping retailer Heal’s found that seven out of 10 people spent up to £5,000 on their homes since the first lockdown.
But just as soon as the nation’s obsession with interiors took hold, the art of great imitation crept in too.‘We're living in a world where everything is about looking good, taking a good photo and Instagram likes – it's just the way of the world,’ explains India Sellars, founder of colourful, decorative fake cake brand Happy Crappy Cakes, a company which she founded on Instagram in February 2021. ‘My customers want the Marie Antoinette style table, with lots of cakes and nice things, to take pictures of.’ Deciding to bypass a traditional website, Sellars instead takes most of her orders through direct messages on Instagram, and over two thirds of her customers are buying her elaborate multi-tiered cakes, made largely from plaster and polystyrene, purely for displaying at-home.
But who actually wants a ‘forever’ cake tantalisingly sitting there goading you to take a dusty bite? No one is perhaps more surprised by their popularity than Sellars herself. ‘I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of people that want them.
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