Instagram Rings returns for its second year with a judging panel whose work spans well beyond the platform. Donatella Versace and Emily Bode join filmmaker Chloé Zhao, musician FINNEAS, Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin, and chef Vikas Khanna. Alongside Instagram’s Adam Mosseri and Eva Chen, they’ll select 25 creatives from around the world who are taking risks with their work.

Follower count won’t factor into their decision. Rings recognizes people taking their craft in new directions, whether they have ten thousand followers or ten million. V spoke to Eva Chen, Instagram’s VP of Fashion Partnerships, to discuss how this year’s panel will approach that task and where she sees creativity on the platform heading.

Mathias Rosenzweig: You’ve put together such a wonderful and diverse list of judges. What went into that decision process? 

Eva Chen: We really wanted to have a real roster of global voices and people who are really moving culture forward. When you think about historical award shows, the people voting might not be the most current or pop culture-adjacent. We wanted people who could redefine what an award show could be and what recognition from your peers could be.

I think that people feel the most honored when it’s a jury of their peers choosing them, or people they admire, and so when you look at this list, I think that we have this amazing mix of the new establishment of voices in culture. So someone like Emily Bode, who I’ve known for a decade now, and I’ve seen her build from one studio in Chinatown to having stores around the world and having such a distinct cultural imprint, to Donatella, who is a legend.

Courtesy of Meta

MR: Completely. 

EC: Last year we had Spike Lee. He too is legendary. And then every year it’s amazing to have someone where everyone is like, oh my gosh, I’m in the same room as—fill in the blank. Isamaya is a makeup artist. I was a beauty editor back in the day, and she’s someone whose career I, even when I left beauty, have just followed.

I think that she’s really groundbreaking and someone that this next generation of fashion and beauty enthusiasts look up to for having her own voice and just always being original. I mean, the list goes on. And then I’m a huge bookstagram and book threads enthusiast.

MR: Me too. It’s like the best, most heartwarming community.

EC: So I followed this creator, Jack Edwards, for years, and then I actually met him in person in Paris. I was seated two seats away from him at the Valentino show, which was book-themed, and so he’s someone that I’m really excited to have in the mix.

It’s weird to say that books are trendy, because to me they should not be trendy. They should always have a consistent presence. But I do feel like this year has been the year of literature and books really entered the fashion and culture conversation, even though they should have been there the whole time.

MR: Something special about Instagram Rings is they’re truly not based on follower count. Why was that an important facet of this? 

EC: I think there are other platforms that give awards or recognition when you hit a certain number of subscribers or followers, and that always just felt like a popularity contest, right? And I think that what we really wanted to do was recognize people who represented taking creative risks and people putting themselves out there and being their complete selves and not just doing things to get followers.

We wanted people who really shape culture, and who will eventually become iconic in their fields across different—we call them verticals. Everyone has to start somewhere. And I don’t know if you feel this way, but I think that when people have fewer followers, they actually do more interesting things, and they feel less constrained by a formula that holds them up to 1 million, 10 million, 100 million, etc. And so we really wanted to reward people who are doing cool, interesting things. A lot of these traditional lists, or traditional award shows, are much more rewarding scale—like, oh wow, this movie did a huge campaign and that’s how they’re winning, or this creator generated this much income. There are some magazine lists that are more based on that, and we’re trying to strip all of that away and really just focus on creativity, culture, and icons recognizing talent. And that’s why we wanted judges who are—I mean, one of the judges last year, Pat McGrath. As long as I’ve known her, which is decades, and from the advent of Instagram, she would always be DMing me people: “Have you seen this nail artist? Have you seen that person?” And sometimes they had 3,000 followers. That’s the kind of list we’re trying to curate with the judges—people who really nerd out over creativity.

MR: Wow. It’s a great way for the public and industry insiders alike to discover new creatives, too. 

EC: I think some of the winners—it’s a span of people, and—I can’t talk about the winners yet. There are going to be people that you personally probably know already. But then hopefully, when you look at the list, you’re like, oh, I don’t know this person from India or Brazil or wherever in the world. And we want to build on it and make it feel like something that you’re proud to be a part of, where every year we get cohorts of these people together, and they actually make friends and create a global network of people supporting each other in their creativity.