There’s a certain kind of woman the internet doesn’t quite know what to do with. Too smart to flatten, too stylish to dismiss, too intentional to scroll past. Creator Tariro Makoni exists in that exact tension, and not only does she live there, she’s building a universe from it.
Before the think pieces, before the Substack essays that read like strategy decks dressed in silk, there was a viral moment. Bella Hadid in mini platform Uggs. A video that didn’t just circulate, it moved product. “My very first viral video… went so viral that it sold the shoe out,” Makoni recalls, almost casually. But virality, for her, was never the end goal. It was proof of concept.
The real shift came when she stopped selling and started theorizing.
“When that video took off, I had an inkling that I had the capacity to take up even more space than I had originally thought,” she says, referencing an early thesis-driven post that fused fashion with sociological, economic and political frameworks. This wasn’t haul culture. This was cultural analysis in kitten heels.
And then came the word.
“Puffification.”
A term she coined in response to luxury fashion’s sudden obsession with inflated silhouettes, positioning it as a sartorial reaction to economic anxiety. It was the kind of insight that doesn’t just trend, it travels. “Harper’s Bazaar picked it up, The Cut picked it up… students at Parsons were talking about it in class.” A design firm in Spain even used it as a conceptual anchor.
Four months into TikTok, Makoni wasn’t just participating in fashion discourse. She was naming it.
The Anti-Algorithm Strategy
In an era where creators are often at the mercy of platforms, Makoni did something radical. She built her own center of gravity.
Enter Trademarked, her Substack.
“Videos are ultimately ephemeral and more than that, an algorithm flattens you,” she says. “There’s no way to sit in the dissonance of existing in the both and.”
That “both and” is her thesis. The idea that a woman can be intellectually rigorous and deeply invested in fashion. That reading the Wall Street Journal at 12 and obsessing over Vogue are not contradictions but companions.
“My entire life, I had been navigating a narrative that I just fundamentally don’t believe in… that women can either be very very smart or very very into clothes,” she says. “And I’m sorry, but I’ve never believed that’s true.”
So she built a platform that does.
She describes Substack with the kind of poetic precision that makes you lean in: “If I’m my own sun, Substack my moon, it anchors everything. And then the waves are what happen across social platforms.”
Translation, TikTok may make the moment but Makoni owns the meaning.
@tariromakoni gr8, now I want it all…… #hermesfw26 ♬ Debussy Arabesque – Isabelle Perrin
Trust as Currency
In the creator economy, trust is often talked about like a buzzword. For Makoni, it’s infrastructure.
“I take trust really seriously, it’s the most valuable currency in the world,” she says. And she moves accordingly. Early in her career, she passed on brand deals entirely. Not selectively. Entirely.
“I was never going to work with anyone that I didn’t fundamentally believe in… I still turn down the majority of opportunities that come across my desk.”
That kind of restraint feels almost luxurious in today’s landscape. But it’s also strategic. Her audience isn’t just engaged, they’re aligned. “I’ve built a community of women who are incredibly intelligent, highly educated, multicultural, chic, powerful and interesting.”
In other words, not easily impressed and definitely not easily sold to.
The Outsider Who Sees Everything
Makoni describes herself as an “outsider’s insider,” a phrase that lands somewhere between memoir title and mission statement.
“Being slightly outside the traditional mold has always been my default,” she says. “I’ve come to see that as a bit of a superpower.”
It’s what allows her to observe fashion not just as industry but as ecosystem. Not just as aspiration but as behavior. There’s a reason her readers compare her writing to Edith Wharton. She’s documenting a world she both belongs to and critiques in real time.
And she’s doing it with a clarity that feels increasingly rare.
The Uniform of Knowing Yourself;
For someone shaping the future of fashion discourse, Makoni’s personal style is surprisingly consistent and unapologetically so.
“I was the 7 year old who would cry to wear a blazer over the weekend,” she laughs. “I have always liked the same stuff.”
Think minimal but not sterile. Tailored but not rigid. “The Row, Khaite, Toteme… whatever you want to name that cult, I’m in it, unfortunately.”
But even within that restraint, there’s play. “I looove whimsy and the impractical,” she says, “but I seek that out in texture and subtleties.”
It’s not about chasing cool. It’s about trusting taste.
@tariromakoni we don’t desire “The Thing” — we desire the signaling mechanism AROUND *the thing* longform is on #trademarked via #substack ♬ Little moments – Reinúr Selson & himood
Building a Universe, Not a Brand
Ask Makoni where she sees herself in five years and she doesn’t say bigger platform or more followers. She says something far more ambitious.
“I’m really good at building universes.”
Not brands. Not content pipelines. Universes.
“It’s something that’s really spiritual and sensorial for me, first felt and then defined through words. And finally, there’s the strategic brand element layered onto that.”
She references women like Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Grede and Emily Sundberg not as comparisons but as proof of possibility. The throughline isn’t influence. It’s ownership.
“At its core, this is a media company,” she says of her work. “But even more than that, this is about the world building we’re doing… something that matters to people, to women, most specifically.”
And if that sounds like a love letter, it is.
“I sometimes joke that if I ever wrote a book, I’d want to dedicate it simply, ‘to women.’ This is my heartbeat.”
In a digital landscape obsessed with immediacy, Tariro Makoni is playing a longer game. One where ideas have weight, taste has memory and influence isn’t measured in clicks but in impact.
The algorithm may amplify her.
But make no mistake, she’s the one writing the code.