Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Shameless Media. This episode of Stylish is brought to you by Myer. Layers, textures and statement coats. Winter has officially arrived in store and online at Myer.
Hello and happy Friday. Welcome to Stylish. Friday Stylish. Friday. This is the corner where we talk all things brand, campaign, career stories. And today I feel like we are really going to get into... The weeds. The weeds. It's been a while since we've been in the weeds. It's been a while since we've been together, but it's been a while since we've been in the weeds as well.
Rae, you're actually going to start by asking me what my word of the week is.
No, let's start by telling everyone what weeds we're getting into and then we'll get into word of the week. I'm just excited for my word of the week. We are talking about the girl boss era. The article we're actually going to be anchoring this conversation around the return of the girl boss ran in vogue. It wasn't that recent.
It was actually March 2025, but I feel like the resurgence of this Girlboss 2.0 has come up a lot with the likes of Emma Greed and the major press tour that she's been doing. The article was, is the Girlboss making a comeback? And I'm excited to get into that and really unpack and get into the weeds and the nitty gritty of like, where do we sit on this and do we want it to be back?
But before we do, Mads, word of the week.
Word of the week. So I'm actually bringing a TikTok account as my word. So, I mean, technically her first name could be the word. Look, you know how much I love jewellery. We all know that. Like I honestly. Your girl's dripped. Someone called me a magpie the other day and I was like, that is just, that's me. I like shiny things.
I notice it as soon as people get something new or they've got like a great style. statement earring or a bracelet. It doesn't even have to be my style. I just notice it on people.
I am shocked by how much you do notice those details. I can't remember who we were with, but it was literally like, it had been months since we'd seen them and you're like, that's new. It was our girlfriend, Georgia. It was.
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Chapter 2: What was the original #girlboss era and how did it change?
She was in over 100 carats of diamonds. But she had actually been with her and was like talking through all of the jewelry in real time and broke down basically all of the jewels. She was actually wearing a Lorraine Schwartz emerald that Angelina Jolie had worn at the Oscars like six years ago. She has the most incredible videos basically breaking down like Elizabeth Taylor kind of diamonds.
She's doing all sorts of breakdown. Look, it's nothing that any of us are going to go out and purchase, obviously. But I just think if you love the history of jewelry or want to understand an element of fashion that is there that's a little bit different to just an outfit. I had the time of my life on my walk this morning looking at all of her videos.
Okay, so is this a passion point or is she like a gemologist? Is there an area of expertise she's speaking from? She's a jeweler and a gemologist.
But I care more about that. It's also a passion. So I kind of love how much she is like entering us into her world.
I love, love, love, love when people speak from an area of expertise. I need to follow. that also lays it in a way that the average person can understand. Yeah, like tell me in layman's terms. Like if you start talking V, blah, diamond, X, I'm like you've lost me. I want to know like surface level, digestible, snackable.
Yeah, I always think of that scene from – and my US office fans will understand this – when Michael Scott is having the finances explained to him and he's like, now explain it to me like I'm five. Yeah. And that's what I always think is like if you were explaining something to someone who didn't know anything, would it be engaging?
And I would say she is. Okay, so we're going to explain the Girlboss era to our audience as if they were five. No, we're going to give them a little bit more credit than that. No, we'll be getting into the weeds in a deep dive, but we'll do that right after a word from today's sponsor. Some people just nail winter fashion.
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Chapter 3: Who are the key figures associated with the girlboss movement?
Hashtag girl boss. Which was originated by the Nasty co-founder, Sofia Amoroso. Do you remember her? Nasty gal.
Not the Nasty founder, the Nasty gal founder. Nasty gal, I forgot that. And that's very important, nasty gal. Yes. And for some of our listeners who might be a little bit younger than us and may not identify in that millennial, so millennial coded, like put Glossier, millennial pink, the LA wall with the wings in the background, like you've got it all in one bucket, you know?
Like that is the era of Nasty Gal. Now, if you were born, say, post-1996, 97, you might be like, I have no idea what you were talking about. But Nasty Gal, I would kind of liken to... A White Fox, a Princess Polly, maybe even like a cheaper Revolve.
More of like a retailer as well because I remember they stocked really cool brands at the time like Jeffrey Campbell. They had that like real edgy sort of like punk vibe but then it was also very like mainstream at the same time. Yes, I would say that they like 50% of Coachella would have been dressed in Nasty Gal at that time.
But Sophia was the founder of that brand and it was very much this idea that she was this really ambitious, really successful, but really cool and put together woman as well. And everything she uploaded on Instagram, hence the hashtag, was hashtag girlboss. Yeah. And that eventually was the name of her book.
It was. Did you read the book? I did. I read the book too. Oh my God, we've really exposed ourselves here. Interestingly though, she does spend a lot of time lamenting in the book about the fact that she didn't have a lot of money when she first started out and was really bouncing around trying to build Nasty Gal as the business that it became a multi, multi-million dollar business.
As quickly as it rose, it did fall though. Yeah, it did.
And I think it was hard for her because she was so applauded and so celebrated and so closely tied to the notion of being a girl boxer.
And I think this general theme in the 2000s, so we're talking around 2010, is that there was Sophia's business that rose to the top. There was Refinery29. There was, you know, Reformation. When you think of hashtag Girlboss, I think of all of these businesses, not just Nasty Girl. Yeah. I think of Emily Weiss and Glossier as well. A surviving member though. Yes. Would we say? Yeah, I still would.
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Chapter 4: What controversies surrounded the girlboss phenomenon?
They all held, you know, the position of either founder or founder, CEO, managing director and whatnot.
Overarching theme, female leaders, positioning of power, very much an authority, but also someone that you were looking up to.
Absolutely. And I think they presented in a very stereotypical fashion isn't the word I want to use, but it was definitely an aspirational.
There was a mold. There was a connecting thread through all of them and a very clear aesthetic that I think really takes you back to that time and makes you think. I think the millennial pink is definitely at the forefront.
Yeah. And I mean, when we talk mold as well, we have to look into the uncomfortable truth, which was that they were white. Rich. They were, you know, and they were generally speaking privileged backgrounds. Mostly. And I think, you know, there's that part of it. And also then we have the fact that they are women and we've never called male bosses boy boss.
No, we haven't. What the Vogue article actually touched on as well is that a lot of these women who disappeared, I would say had to go underground once their businesses either fell apart, quite literally, they don't exist anymore, so both Nasty Gal and The Wing closed, or they had to step away. and opt into less founder facing opportunities, more angel investment opportunities.
Some of them have slowly reappeared. So Audrey Gelman, who was the co-founder of the Insta famous workspace called The Wing, and again, so millennial coded. So for those of you who don't know, it was like, think about all the working spaces around here, like the commons, WeWork.
It was like very female skewed and it was very much about connecting and networking in an environment where, you know, you could get exposure to other people who were like-minded. Great concept. Great concept.
Laced with controversies, there were actually reports at the time about the working conditions, but Audrey and the founder of Reformation, Yael Aflalo, both of them have recently come back into their roles. And that's what the Vogue article was really, really trying to focus on is, you know, why did these women have to go away or go quiet? And does this actually signal that Girlboss 2.0 is back?
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Chapter 5: How did the pandemic influence work culture and the girlboss narrative?
It wasn't exactly we were able, we were forced. But there was this systematic shift of, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, actually I can go for a walk in the morning later in the day. I'm not up at 5am to get to the gym to have my coffee to be in the office by 7.30, 8 o'clock. I think a lot of that changed. And so I think the girl boss... return does deserve to be interrogated.
It cannot be a lift and load because the other additional complexity is also that even when Girl Boss 1.0 was going on and, you know, fueling ambition and in some cases exploitation, it was still encouraging women to work as hard as possible in a system still not built for them to succeed or achieve. Do you know what it reminds me of?
Do you know the phrase, the glass cliff? No, I know the glass ceiling, but not the glass cliff. So the glass cliff is this idea that women are often put into positions of power, like a CEO role, when shit hits the fan. So, you know, a business is in turmoil or crisis, they've had a scandal or, you know, the market share is quite shit. And usually this term is...
specifically related to businesses that are listed on the stock exchange as well. So optics wise, you've got this woman who's coming and being put into a position to save the day. But the fact of the matter is it's only when shit hits the fan.
Can I give two examples of when we're seeing this in our local market? One's political and one's business related. The first is Christine Holgate. at AusPost. Yes. So infamously purchased, I believe it was five or six Cartier watches as bonuses. If you actually look into what has happened at Australia Post previously, Christine Holgate was absolutely used as a scapegoat for that.
She is now at a competitor of AusPost, absolutely thriving. But I would say that was an example of she was held to a very different standard of a man. And the other is the most recent federal election, the Liberal Party had their worst ever result, lost the most amount of seats they ever had. Have a female leader step in after that crisis.
Yeah. And it's so frustrating because so often these women, you know, we're wanting women at the top and we're wanting them to be into positions of power. But the reality of it is... the lay of the land and the industry itself is usually fucked or the business is fucked. And then what it means is that these women are then in shorter tenures, what their male counterpart would be.
The thing is as well, this is actually statistically backed and it's a really, really strong indicator of the woman not being the problem. It's actually the industry or the company itself, so much so that it affects women's tenure in a position. So, you know, it's one thing that they're being put in these positions when
shits hitting the fan it's another that they're then having to move on quite quickly and the business is going like oh well this is why we can't have women in power or that's what the media is portraying on behalf of these businesses so the actual tenure Guardian actually reported since 2018 women have lasted an average of 5.2 years as chief executives compared to 8.1 years for men
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Chapter 6: What does Girlboss 2.0 look like in today's context?
That's a significant difference from the 17% they saw in 2014. Megan went on to say there's been meaningful progress in increasing women's representation, especially at the top of companies. Now, I don't think we can solely say that, you know, the girl boss era inspired that in its entirety.
But what I will say is the trend of ambition, the trend of inspiring women to really show up at work and be present and, you know, really try and succeed has contributed favorably to that C-suite start.
Yeah, it absolutely has. And I think where the challenge is for this Girlboss 2.0 is how do we still have it continually serving women whilst also balancing and protecting peace and having work-life balance and being who we are outside of just our jobs? So what do we need to do differently? So much.
So much. Look. Maybe take the lunch break. Yeah, take your lunch break. People just love a label. And what I think we need to be doing is not labelling this next iteration of hashtag Girlboss 2.0 and instead allowing space for people who want to lean into ambition. People who want to find this type of content and find inspirations like Emma Greed. What Emma Greed is saying and doing is not wrong.
It's just not for everyone.
I do think that this sort of pile on in this, you're this or you're that culture at the moment is where we risk pulling each other down.
I'm going to make it about women. This is what we do. Yeah, we do this and we have to be accountable. And, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, you've got the trad white trend. You've got soft. What is it again? You've got soft life. And again, that also comes from a place of privilege where people can work for themselves. If that is something that you're able to do in your freelancing.
That's not a soft life, Rae. I know that, but I feel when you said that, I thought of freelancers and people who are able to work for themselves to be able to create that work-life balance. That's really hard to do in a corporate structure. Unless you're working in a corporate environment, you're like, what is it? The silent quitting as well. It's very much just like kind of cruising.
I mean, I kind
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Chapter 7: How can women balance ambition with personal well-being?
What advice would you give someone who wasn't loving their work or, you know, happy in their job? And she was like, quit. And then the surge of criticism that she got for saying, like, do something that you love and like a very watery media trained answer. Like there wasn't really, it was like platitudes, really. But the surge of criticism that she got for that.
So you've got two examples here, the Kim Kardashian one and the Emily Blunt one. Completely different ends of the spectrum, completely different answers. Like, what do we want?
Because work is such a big part of your life, whether you feel you have balance or not, the reality is you're probably spending more time there than you are with your family and friends. To talk about it or to investigate it feels like an attack. And so I think both of those spectrums, telling you to work harder and telling you to quit, it feels like you're intruding on someone's
biggest part of their life. Whether you identify as your job or you don't, you spend the majority of your time there.
Let's just let that content be out there. If you don't like it, we all have agency. I say no to content I don't like. What is it? Not interested on the TikTok app.
Hold down, not interested. Like if it doesn't concern you or you don't like it, you don't have to consume it. You don't have to be outraged by it. Slide along.
And that doesn't mean we don't have to have discourse about it. That is healthy. That is constructive. But I think both of these things can exist.
Well, safe to say Girlboss is back, but hopefully looking a little different this time.
Slightly different.
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