Long before “influencer” was a career title anyone put on a resume, a teenager in Vancouver was already building one. In 2014, Emma Rose Leger started a small fashion blog called West Coast Kinda Girl — years before Instagram had an algorithm, before brands had influencer budgets, and before anyone really believed you could make a living posting outfit photos.
Today, she’s one of Canada’s most recognizable style influencers, with over 650,000 followers on Instagram, a thriving YouTube channel, and a podcast under her belt. But the story of how she got there says a lot about how the entire influencer economy grew up around her.
The Blog That Started It All
Leger didn’t set out to become a full-time content creator — she just wanted an outlet. She started her blog in 2014 to express her love of fashion, beauty, and travel, never expecting the community that would eventually form around it. The blog’s name, West Coast Kinda Girl, was a nod to where she was raised — Leger was born and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia — and it doubled as a kind of digital diary before it became a business.
She’s said she got lucky with timing, breaking into the space when only a handful of creators were even monetizing their content, long before “influencer” was treated as a legitimate career path.
Building a Career From Scratch
Leger sharpened her eye for fashion formally too, graduating from the fashion business and creative arts program at the JCI Institute. That training showed up fast — by 2017, she was collaborating with the brand Sabo Skirt during New York Fashion Week, a milestone that pushed her from “blogger” into genuine industry player.
From there, the brand partnerships snowballed. Over the years she’s worked with names like Dior, Charlotte Tilbury, Revolve, Salvatore Ferragamo, Jacquemus, Summer Fridays, and Princess Polly — a client list that spans luxury fashion, beauty, and accessible streetwear, which is part of what’s made her feed feel aspirational without being unreachable.
Eventually, West Coast Kinda Girl was retired as a standalone blog. Leger consolidated her presence into Instagram, YouTube, and a podcast called That’s So Sabotage, streamlining years of content into a tighter, more personal brand built around her own name instead of a blog title.
Life Behind the Feed
What looks like a glamorous highlight reel is, by Leger’s own account, a lot more grind than people assume. In an interview, she pushed back on the idea that influencers have it easy, pointing out that most people underestimate how much work goes into running what is essentially a one-woman media company — from content creation to brand management to logistics.
She’s also been candid about the emotional side of that misconception. Leger has said she often walks into rooms bracing for the stigma that still surrounds influencers as a profession, even after a decade of doing the work. Her response has been to show more of the unglamorous reality — the behind-the-scenes hustle — rather than just the polished final post.
Her advice to anyone chasing a similar path is refreshingly simple: network relentlessly, because relationships built the career as much as content ever did.
Why Her Story Still Resonates
Leger’s arc — teenage blog, years of unglamorous groundwork, then a payoff most people only see in the final numbers — is the version of “influencer success” that rarely gets told. It’s not a viral moment or a single lucky post. It’s a decade of consistency in an industry that didn’t even have a name for what she was doing when she started.
That’s arguably what makes her one of the more credible voices in the space now: she was there before the industry had rules, and she helped write some of them by simply refusing to quit.
Follow Emma Rose Leger on Instagram @emmaleger and YouTube for her latest fashion, beauty, and lifestyle content.