Late last summer, I cut my 3,000 Instagram posts down to 30. It took innumerable hours spread out over weeks to delete them all, using a hyper-specific (and fairly buggy) app fittingly called Delete for Instagram. It let me select batches of 50 posts, saving the images and videos to my iPhone’s camera roll before purging them from the app for good. Gone from my grid were photos of mason jar cocktails from Brooklyn bars in 2012 and awful #ootd mirror shots from 2013. Bad hair decisions, ex-lovers, blurry concert shots — all evacuated. 

What remained were pictures that represented me at the time; things I still felt communicated what I would want someone to know about me should they land on my profile. I love to imagine, for instance, the new girlfriend of one of those aforementioned exes looking at my profile and thinking, “Damn, what a cool chick. I hope I measure up but there is certainly no way. Just look at her fine taste, exciting lifestyle, and that unmatchable wit!” Or something. 

I was initially inspired to pare down my account when I noticed the minimalist profiles of influential teens (forever a source of personal aspiration). After New York magazine published a profile of then-16-year-old Lilli Hymowitz, a New York City kid with money and mystique, dubbing her “the prom queen of Instagram” in September 2015, she swiftly deleted nearly every image on her account, leaving just three posts remaining that pre-dated the article. Ditto Mike the Ruler, a menswear fashion aficionado who broke out at 11 or 12 (and had his own NY mag profile by 13). Soon I noticed plenty of teens who were not profiled by magazines for their impressive lifestyles or vast followings doing the same thing, bringing their accounts down to post counts around 20, or even less. Partly to wipe away images of tastes that they have since outgrown, sure — and that happens so fast when you’re that age — but partly, I thought, as a statement of ownership over their online identity.

Prior to noticing this phenomenon, it had never really occurred to me to delete an Instagram. Not only had my tastes changed since I opened my account at some point late in college, but so had the reigning aesthetics of Instagram. Out were heavily filtered cameraphone snaps with a vignette blur effect, in were crystal-clear photographs with beautiful, natural lighting and crisp colors. Having recently left a full-time job to freelance, I have become especially aware of my online image, as it has become even more of a “first impression” when it comes to attracting new business. If you Google me (or yourself), social profiles are among the first results to float to the top. Forget the new girlfriend of ex boyfriends — what impression was I serving to editors or interview subjects I hadn’t met in person? Instagram had become more than an amusing feed of my friends’ goings-on. It had the potential to serve as a static homepage, communicating who I am to anyone dropping by.

Instagram itself seems to be acknowledging this shift in how the app is used with its new Archive feature, launched to select users late May and released to everyone Tuesday. Archive allows you to hide — and unhide — photos from your profile page, offering further curation of your grid without the permanence of deleting or the feed-clogging of reuploading. Effectively, one can wipe clean some or all of their Instagram presence and easily tailor what other users will see when they arrive at their profile page.

“A lot of people, including teenagers, use their Instagram profile to represent who they are today,” Instagram product manager Yichen Wang told me by email when I asked about the youth influence on the feature. “We want to give people the flexibility to evolve their profile as they do over time,” she said, adding that Instagram sees Archive as a solution “whether you want to curate your grid on your profile to better represent who you are, move old posts off your profile without losing likes and comments forever, preserve important memories for yourself, or simply share what’s happening in the moment to feed without worrying about it living on your profile.” That last point is not dissimilar from the Story feature, but it has touch more permanence. 

“[Your Instagram profile] is kind of your living space online,” Ramon Luna, a sales analyst by trade, and hobby photographer with a meticulously plotted out Instagram profile, told me over the phone. “It’s kind of like how Myspace was before Facebook, like how you wanted to make your Myspace look a certain way,” he said. “It’s like your virtual room, and I want to keep my room clean.” He recalled looking at his 15-year-old sister’s Instagram recently to find a baby picture she’d posted of the two of them. “I went on her feed and noticed she only had like three posts. I have some friends my age who do that, too,” he said. He noted, however, “Maybe it’s different for teens because they’re hitting different stages in their life; like they’re going to high school and they don’t want to have photos of them from junior high. That’s different from an adult who curates it.”

Brands and influencers have also embraced the idea of the Instagram profile as a homepage, serving a specific and consistent image that capitalizes on the grid format, or focusing on a particular type of post. (A food writer friend with an impressive online following told me once she loses a noticeable number of followers every time she posts a selfie instead of a meal.) When launching her label LPA last year, fashion designer Lara Pia Arrobio took advantage of Instagram-profile-as-first-impression by using the grid to create an elaborate, collaged mood board. “I like to try to post things in threes, especially with a launch,” she told me by phone. “When we do seasonal launches, we’ll do a grid like that just to be like, ‘Hey, we’re LPA, this is what we’re all about,’ and that was really good for the [initial] launch.” 

The carefully curated Instagram accounts of brands and public figures have duly filtered down to the rest of us. The Verge’s own Lizzie Plaugic, whose Instagram account currently has just 13 photos, told me, “I follow some people with really nicely curated Instagram accounts and so in comparison, looking at mine, I’m like ‘Hmm, I don’t know if this is what I want.’ Instagram is definitely the prettiest social platform, and there’s definitely a pressure to have very nice photos.” Similar to Luna, her end game isn’t to amass followers — her account isn’t even public. “Every so often I’ll go through and spruce it up, by which I mean make it more sparse,” she said. “I just look through what I have and decide which ones I don’t like, or which ones seemed funny at the time and now I think are dumb, or I maybe just don’t like, aesthetically, or it was a photo from a specific moment that I decided I don’t need to see anymore.” 

Archive is a savvy response to the way people are using Instagram now — not just to share but also to withhold. With profile manicuring now simplified within the app, it shouldn’t be long before the masses follow the tone set by teens, as pop culture history always has.

Last week, Amazon gave Chicago Bulls shooting guard Dwyane Wade his own boutique of sorts. “Bringing my style game to @amazonfashion with my own online store,” said Wade in an Instagram post blasted to his 9.2M followers. Wade’s Amazon hub houses a suite of brands he’s collaborated with — Mission activewear, Stance socks, Tie Bar accessories — as well as his own sneaker label, Way of Wade. It doesn’t sound revolutionary, but creating a shop strictly made up of one celebrity’s brands is pretty unique — and for Amazon Fashion, it’s really, really smart.

Fashion is a huge focus for Amazon, as it looks to become, in its own words, “the best place to buy fashion online.” Retail analysts and fashion industry veterans have been doubtful of Amazon’s ability to seduce the fashion customer, because, well, nothing about Amazon is very fashion. “Its front-end experience is not currently optimised for merchandising emotional products, while its association with discounting turns off luxury brands,” wrote Richie Siegel for Business of Fashion. “Although practical items like socks and trainers might be top sellers on Amazon, many still question whether the site will ever be capable of conjuring the dream required to sell thousand dollar dresses and bags.”

A Gucci bag on Amazon Fashion vs. Net-a-Porter, the leader in luxury fashion e-commerce.

Emotion is the essential differentiator between slinging apparel (which Amazon is pretty good at) and selling fashion (which Amazon is not yet very good at). Think of it like this: apparel is utilitarian problem solving (“I need socks”), while fashion is subjective self-expression (“I need to look good for this job interview”). Wade brings an emotional bond he’s developed with his fans over his years-long career, as well as his reputation as a stylish guy. The store’s landing page also shows that Amazon is catching on: it’s uncluttered, the photography is rich, and the product mix is focused. It’s a sign that Amazon might be able to do this fashion thing after all.

Making the leap from apparel to fashion would be a boon to Amazon’s bottom line. “Amazon’s interest in fashion e-commerce is undoubtedly driven by the nearly $300 billion in US revenue,” Ken Cassar, principal analyst at Slice Intelligence, tells The Verge, noting that apparel is one of the biggest US retail categories. “Fashion merchandise typically is a highly profitable category,” adds Manik Aryapadi, a principal in the retail division of consulting firm A.T. Kearney. Ed Yruma, an analyst with KeyBanc Capital, estimates the boost in profits from apparel sales could add 25 cents to Amazon’s earnings per share in 2017.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos isn’t afraid to play the long game when conquering a new market. The company has been flirting with fashion since at least 2006, when it acquired multi-brand womenswear e-tailer Shopbop. In subsequent years, it has worked to align itself with highly visible fashion industry events, sponsoring a Costume Institute exhibition in 2012 and the 2015 launch of New York Fashion Week: Men’s. It also sponsors two international fashion weeks, which now bear the brand’s name in their official titles: Amazon India Fashion Week and Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo.

But 2017 is the year Amazon Fashion is really beginning to strike. At the beginning of the year, Amazon quietly launched seven private label apparel brands, with most SKUs in men’s accessories, women’s dresses, and handbags. In April, it added its own lingerie line with cut-rate prices. Most recently, it announced an extension of its Alexa-enabled Echo product line specifically designed to take outfit photos and give style feedback. Farther behind the scenes, the company is investing in its own fully automated clothing factory, a shipping company (code name: Dragon Boat), and physical stores.

Customers have certainly shown they’re willing to buy clothes from Amazon: in 2016, Amazon registered the most apparel sales of any online retailer in the US for those 18–34, claiming more than double the market share of Nordstrom, which came in second place. Shoppers surveyed in an October 2016 report by Cowen & Co. said Amazon Prime was the main draw to purchasing apparel on the site, followed by high marks for convenience, customer service, and reviews. The Cowen study reported Amazon held 6.6 percent of the apparel market when it was published, projecting 8.2 percent in 2017, and 16.2 percent by 2021, with an estimated $62 billion in annual apparel sales, followed by TJ Maxx and Macy’s. “Amazon is more than capable of becoming the biggest retailer of apparel made by other brands,” Cassar says. “In fact it will probably accomplish that in 2017.” Still, he is doubtful about Amazon’s ability to bring the success it’s seen with apparel into fashion. “I do not believe that Amazon is capable of establishing a strong enough emotional connection with consumers to be a leading fashion brand itself.”

Aryapadi has identified three major points Amazon needs to hit in order to become a true fashion powerhouse. “First, Amazon will need to hire top design/creative talent, and give them artistic freedom to experiment and bring uniqueness to the assortment, not ‘more of the same,’” he says, adding that consumers (especially millennials) want distinct and unique merchandise. Second, he stressed that Amazon needs to offer merchandise at different price points. “Amazon’s cachet has always been value-driven price points,” he notes, but “having a luxury/premium label creates a halo and an aspirational effect.” Lastly, Aryapadi argues that the online retailer needs to go deeper with offline engagement. Yep: real stores. “As retail brick and mortar evolves, physical stores will serve as playgrounds for the brand,” he explains, “where consumers experience the brand and develop an emotional connection.” Opening stores in fashion-forward cities like New York City or Paris, he suggests, “can help Amazon build credibility in the fashion space.”

Josh Shaw, founder and CEO of Mission, one of the brands involved in the Dwyane Wade shop, is aware that the project signals a necessary shift in Amazon’s approach to fashion, and is enthusiastic about it. “People’s impressions of Amazon are going to change,” he says. “Amazon Fashion, a year ago people looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, good luck,’” Shaw says. “They should not have second-guessed them, because anything Amazon puts their mind to, they’re very successful.”