Nymphet Alumni

After a brief hiatus, the Nymphies are BACK!! In this annual ceremony, we honor 2025’s greatest achievements in fashion and culture with awards from us at the Nymphet Alumni Academy of Arts and Sciences, including categories such as Best and Worst Rebrand, Outfit of the Year, Best Sillyboy, and Best Brainrot Trend, featuring exclusive access to our careful deliberation process. We lay to rest dearly departed aesthetics of years pas...

In this episode, we’re joined (again!!) by Avery Trufelman, the grand dame of fashion podcasting, to discuss the latest installment of her podcast, Articles of Interest, titled Gear. In this meticulously researched series, Avery dives deep into the history of tactical/outdoor fashion and the ways in which the United States Military and the world of high-tech performance wear continuously influence each other. She answers our pressi...

In this edition of Study Break, we discuss the return of press tour psychodrama surrounding Wicked: For Good, the concerning midwittery of the Met Gala’s recent theme announcement, DLlegations in the highest office of the nation, and profiles in infidelity and iMessage confessionalism featuring Olivia Nuzzi and Lily Allen. We also review Vanity Fair’s latest Hollywood issue while reflecting on the bygone golden age of Hollywood ens...

In this week’s episode, we develop a theory of Scientifica, a fashion aesthetic that borrows from the visual language of science, with influences ranging from Victorian taxonomy to Utopian Scholastic nostalgia to legacy science-fiction world-building. We examine recent manifestations of this impulse—runway shows that feel like scientific exhibitions or presentations, references to astronomical phenomena and archival display, and co...

In this episode, we are honored to be joined by pop princess and fashion icon Kim Petras to discuss the world of inspiration behind her newest project, especially the Fashioncore anthem heard around the world, “I Like Ur Look.” Kim walks us through her formative fashion memories, from aspirational MTV programming to inaugural designer grails, and tells us about her latest archival obsessions, including her special connection to Mar...

In this edition of Study Break, we discuss the ragebait spectacle of Paris Fashion Week, darksided news from Hollywood featuring Tilly Norwood and D4vd, lives of showgirls everywhere from Taylor Swift’s possible schizophrenia diagnosis to Addison Rae’s vintage scream queen moment to Zara Larsson’s sublime vocal talent, and the cultural warfare fallout of Bad Bunny’s road to the Super Bowl. Sam also reviews Paul Thomas Anderson’s ...

This week on Nymphet Alumni, Biz is joined by journalist and author Marisa Meltzer to talk about her new book It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin — the first comprehensive biography of the actress, singer and myth-muse. The two get into the making of Birkin’s image and the unseen real life behind it, plus how aging, style and selfhood intersect. Also discussed: the horrors of Serge Gainsbourg’s man-cave, Timothee Chalamet a...

In this episode, Alexi is joined by writer, editor, and dear friend Olivia Kan-Sperling to discuss the aesthetic universe of her brand new novel, Little Pink Book, a lyrical and decadent romantic tragedy set in Shanghai. In unpacking her wide range of influences, we explore shabby chic Orientalism, avant garde florists, Chinese romantasy web novels, baroque bespoke beverages, the emerging field of Wasian studies, the triggering qua...

In this episode, we welcome back none other than the “Freud of Fashion” herself, Dr. Valerie Steele, to discuss the Museum at FIT’s latest exhibition, Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis. Dr. Steele walks us through central theories on mirrors, masquerade, and eroticism, exploring the deep-seated fears and fantasies that drive what we wear. We dissect how the theories of Lacan and Freud play out on the bodies dres...

In this emergency roundtable report, we discuss how clownery has become a dominant mode of aesthetic and ideological expression, perhaps symbolizing the defeat of authenticity. Recent carnivalesque incidents include the chaotic spectacle of this year’s VMAs, the meteoric rise of the Savannah Bananas, Jay Guapo’s Italian Brainrot Block Party, the political role reversal of the troll and the triggered, Audrey Hobert’s debut album Who...

This week, we discuss the glamorous world of the Magazine Girl, dissecting the real and fictional lives of women who worked at glossy magazines during their heyday. Through profiles of icons including Diana Vreeland, Anna Wintour, Franca Sozzani, Carine Roitfeld, and Plum Sykes, we distill the shared qualities that made these women so foundational to high fashion media. Inspired by Anna Wintour’s recent resignation and the buzz aro...

In this edition of Study Break, we discuss the suspiciously overblown controversy of Sydney Sweeney’s AE ad spot, our box office takes on Ari Aster’s Black Lives Matter COVID Western and the new Superman, fascinating late night musical debuts from Pinkpantheress and Jessie Murph, the summer of female sexual aggression, our love of senior dating and romance, and more.

Links:

Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans – American Eagle

Brooke Shie...

This week on Nymphet Alumni, Biz interviews New York newsletter phenom and Feed Me founder Emily Sundberg. They discuss the West Village-ification of America, the curious case of Hamptons face and what’s aspirational to young people in New York in 2025. Plus, Emily shares her advice on how to find your voice and how to protect your digital ...

In this week’s episode, we explore the cryptic and chaotic world of Opium, the record label founded by Playboi Carti in 2019 that has since evolved into a full-blown subculture of chronically online and fashionably darksided super-fans. From botched merch capsules and vampire cosplay to early TikTok dances and baby mama drama, we descend the Opium iceberg and trawl the Cartinese dark web in attempt to understand the Chrome-bejewel...

In this edition of Study Break, we discuss the mass psychosis of Love Island USA, major couture debuts at Dior and Celine, the sauceless hypergamy parable of Celine Song’s Materialists, Cate Blanchett’s chilling epilogue cameo in Squid Game, and current Latina affairs from Katseye’s “Gabriela” to the Sanchez-Bezos midlife nuptial extravaganza. We also review Addison’s stadium debut at Wembley and report on courtroom happenings incl...

In this edition of Study Break, in which we subtly celebrate Sam’s birthday, we discuss a variety of women’s issues: the discourse meltdown brought on by Sabrina Carpenter’s chauvinist comeback and her aesthetic shift from pastels and pin-ups to Helmut Newton and Halston; the mass crisis of female reproductive unwellness; Addison Rae’s kaleidoscopic showgirl debut; and the upsetting regression of Sydney Sweeney’s bathwater hustle. ...

In this episode, we oscillate between antebellum steamboat grifters and prosperity gospel televangelists to unpack the archetype of the American con man: a self-made myth-maker cloaked in charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. We discuss itinerant preachers, LA hypebeast cyber-apostles, Herman Melville, identity theft, April Fool’s Day, ma...

This week on Nymphet Alumni, Alexi interviews Angel Money, New York nightlife darling and visionary of beauty and commerce. Over the course of more than two hours, we discuss her past life as a Tumblr-famous pale grunge blogger, her balance between New Age spirituality and hedonistic abundance, her intimate knowledge of custom Chinese manufacturing, her fashion controversies from cultural appropriation to exotic animal pelts, mad s...

In this episode, we’re joined by the legendary Emily Segal: writer, artist, cultural clairvoyant, and co-founder of K-HOLE and Nemesis. We talk about her brand-conscious NYC upbringing and art school education-by-osmosis, AI and telepathy, the collapse of unified worldviews, and what it means to be a creative director when every pair of jeans is trending at once. Emily also unearths the lost downtown dream of Chumbo and unpacks for...