Is the ‘girlboss'’really back?

0:08This episode of Stylish is brought to you by Myle. Layers, textures and statement coats. Winter has officially arrived in store and online at Myle.

0:23Hello 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.

0:56We are talking about the Girlboss era. The article we're actually going to be anchoring this conversation around the return of the Girlboss 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.

1:28Word 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 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.

2:04And you're like, that's new. It was our girlfriend, Georgia. And we were having a glass of wine and I was like, I like that bracelet. It's new. I have not seen that on you. So one thing, obviously, we've just come back off the Met Gala. We had our episode on Tuesday for our Wednesday drop of Stylish, chatting all things Met Gala. But what I love that happens a few days after the Met Gala is you start to see things that, you know, the outfit tends to be the focus, but you start to hear more about the hair, who did the makeup, what the jewels were. There is an account called Julia Chafe on TikTok.

2:32I think she has about 250 ,000 followers, but she has been doing these breakdowns of jewelry, being like doing this video until I get to become the Met Gala correspondent for jewelry. I like the sharp angle on that. Very narrow, like focusing on jewelry. That's my area of expertise. Exactly. Which it's not my area of expertise, but that's where my focus was in the last 24 hours. Jo had referenced Isha Ambani. She was in over a hundred 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.

3:10She has the most incredible videos basically breaking down like Elizabeth Taylor kind of diamonds. She's doing all sorts of breakdowns. 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 jewellery 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 jeweller and a gemologist.

3:40Okay, yeah, yeah. I care more about that. It's also a passion. So I kind of love how much she's 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 lace 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, excellent, 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.

4:17and 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 girl boss era to our audience as if they were five no we're going to give them a little bit more credit than that 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 it might be a friend of yours a celebrity or a stranger you pass on the street either way they usually have one thing in common They are masters at layering.

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5:44Okay, Bad Gal Riri. What is a girl boss? What do I think a girl boss is? Okay, first and foremost, I think hashtag girl boss. Hashtag girl boss. Which was originated by the nasty co-founder Sophia 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 war with the wings in the background, like you've got it all in one bucket, you know?

6:19Like 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 Girl at that time. But Sophia was the founder of that brand.

6:56And 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. 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.

7:31As quickly as it rose, it did fall though. Yeah, it did. And I 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 boss. 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 girl boss, I think of all of these businesses, not just Nasty Gal. Yeah. I think of Emily Weiss and Glossier as well, which was - member though yes oh would we say uh yeah i see i still would i feel like in terms of coming out of that era unscathed maybe not in a unscathed's not the right word yeah i was like she's definitely been scathed by controversy totally but i think in terms of still existing and operating in a very visible setting she is all those other founders that we've referenced i would say had to go dark because all of them experienced their own controversies and you know there were articles that were around either about unfair treatment to employees and working conditions, racism was at the centre of a lot of these conversations, or, you know, this positioning of their business being really successful, but then behind closed doors, it was actually, you know, hemorrhaging cash.

8:44So a variety of reasons, some of them very legitimate in the sense of why they were garnering criticism. Some of them, I feel a little bit of a pile on. Yeah. And I think it was such an interesting concept because one, by nature, the word boss is to have authority to be in charge of which they all were. 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.

9:22There was a mould. 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 mould 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.

9:54What 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. Yeah. 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 InstaFamous 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.

10:28It 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?

11:01Yeah. And there's an interesting element of Girlboss, I feel like, that we haven't touched on, Rhi. And that is that it was a hustle culture. When they were interviewed, when they were profiled, when they wrote their books, it was very much like I did 16 hour days. I skipped breakfast. You know, I ate dinner in the office. Like, I think that is an inherently big part of that and hallmark of that period of the girl boss. Like, you know, there's more memes than I can count of, you know, girl bossing too close to the sun and, you know, God bless Emily and the Devil Wears Prada very timely. But, you know, I love my job.

11:36I love my job. I love my job. This idea that, you know, you were your work and you were what you did. And there were no boundaries. It was like work and life went into one and your life became your work and it became your identity. And it became cool. You know, it became cool to work and to work really hard and how hard you work showed how busy and important you were. Busy. It was like a branding. I'm so busy. This is very much busy is the word that always comes front of mind for me or top of mind, I'm like, oh my God, I'm so busy. It's like people wearing that as a badge of honor. Yeah. And a badge of I'm important enough to be busy.

12:10I think it's really important to acknowledge a lot of this culture of what was embraced was actually really fucking toxic. Oh yeah. Like a lot of what was branded as ambition was straight up exploitation. And maybe it wasn't in all of those businesses or maybe, you know, just pulling away from these businesses as a whole and looking at that culture of that era, it was absolutely laced in exploitation. This was also backed by Kate Lindsay, who was the author of the Embedded Newsletter and host of IcyYMI. She also worked at Refinery29 in the height of the Girlboss era. And she said a lot of what was branded as ambition was actually exploitation that you were okay with and the business was okay with.

12:47Yeah, completely. And so I guess now we're at 2026. We've got more than enough articles, sub stacks going around back in the algorithm. Do you think Girlboss 2.0 is here? I think it's here, but I think it's framed differently. And I think there's some really, really, really strong learnings, both positive and negative that we can take from this era. I will say up top, viscerally, when I read hashtag girlboss 2.0, my visceral response was quite negative because I think the term girlboss itself has a negative connotation. So even in, honestly, in my own day to day life, if someone uses that term or even to describe me, I bristle.

13:25Yeah. Because I see that as like, that's not good. No. I don't want to be hashtag girl boss. I don't want to like, I don't want to embody that. I don't want to embrace that because as much as I love the fact that there is space for people to be able to see, take motivation and take inspiration from whether it be these women in the 2010s, which we did, we were reading their books. We were taking the good. We was craving people to show us what you had to do to be successful. And I do believe that. I do believe that being successful comes with sacrifice. And I do believe that you really have to push yourself in your workplace.

14:00Do I believe you have to do that at the expense of your mental health? Do I believe you have to do that and be shit to other people? No. Those things are not mutually exclusive. So what I see now and as this next iteration of hashtag Girlboss 2.0 is taking all the good stuff from that era and showing people what you can do in your job, but also showing them that you do not have to work to 10pm. And maybe this is also very specific to the industry that I'm in, but you do not have to kill yourself for the job or for the fucking corporate ladder to be successful. Yeah. And it's funny because if we look at the 10 years in between, the complexity for me is that the pendulum swung so much.

14:40So we went from this hustle, grind, eat at your desk, don't take a lunch break. And that was applauded. I have personally benefited from that system of not taking the lunch break, getting in early, getting in before your boss. I was brought up in that culture. Mads, you and I have had this conversation so many times. We have had to unlearn so much of what was imposed on us by our bosses and we were told that is what is going to get you a promotion. That is a, I will hand on my heart say, that was said to me. If you are not seen as the last person leaving this office, if you are seen taking a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day, you will be questioned.

15:15And that is fucked. Like I'm saying that. But it was 100 % the reality that we had to experience. And so for me, where the pendulum has swung so much in that, Rae, is that we then had the rise of the soft life, soft girl, lazy girl. And I do think COVID was a big part of that because suddenly we were able to work from home. You know, 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.

15:50I think a lot of that changed. And so I think the Girlboss return does deserve to be interrogated. It cannot be a lift and load because the other additional complexity is also that even when Girlboss 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.

16:32So, 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 OzPost. Yes. So infamously purchased, I believe it was five or six Cartier watches as bonuses.

17:09If you actually look into what has happened at Australia Post previously, Christine Holger 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.

17:45But 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 shit's 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.

18:22So 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. Like that's a huge difference in terms of that duration and tenure. And that's speaking to this idea that, you know, they're coming in, they're being expected to clean everything up, but then they're not given the same runway or opportunity as men to be able to do it. There's no grace. And I think that I read a great sub stack by the author was called Digress and spoke about this a lot. And there was a piece of research by McKinsey that was referenced that I believe the Vogue article also referenced, that was saying it's actually not an ambition gap with women.

18:58It's the support around them to support that ambition, to see that through to fulfilment. So it doesn't exist when the system is built to support. And I think to highlight that gap, that perfectly holds its hand as a piece of research to say, okay, yes, there's a three year gap between men and women. If women were to be supported in that environment, that gap actually wouldn't exist. And bringing it back to the girl boss era as well, the Vogue piece touches on this quite a bit. A lot of the controversy and the criticism that these women face and the reasons why they had to step away, there is justification there, but there were also systemically issues and these women were given millions and millions of dollars.

19:38They weren't given the team to support them and be around them to make better financial decisions. They're expected to be the jack of all trades and we all know how that ends up. You're the master of none. Bang on, Ray. Next, we're going to talk about what we actually feel like needs to change under the Girl Pulse era and what has changed. But that will be right after a word from today's sponsor.

20:18paired with fun statement pieces. There's layers, textures, denim, knitwear, coats, and accessories made for mixing and matching. Shop new winter arrivals from brands like Topshop, Mossman, Only, and Vera Motor online and in stores now. And thank you so much to Maya for making this episode of Stylish possible.

20:44Straight off the bat, I think we can acknowledge that hustle culture from that hashtag girlboss 2010 era is dead and that needed to change. It's also really important to acknowledge that embracing, I would say flexibility is important. And I think businesses are definitely doing that, especially this post COVID era. We're seeing more work from home. We're seeing, you know, people like myself and like you Mads who are able to work full time, but then also embrace their own line of works outside of that, build their own profile, you know, freelance. you've gone from working in a big corporate structure to now working freelance and that gives you by design more flexibility and freedom to be able to create work-life balance.

21:24I've got to say as well the uncomfortable thing which is and it's ironic when you're saying you know to have this balance you can also do other things. It's not applauded at the moment to be like I'm working really hard or I'm tired and I you know we had an interaction recently where someone was like I love that all these girls are doing all of these things like you know smart girls doing cool stuff, trying really hard. It's not popular to say, yes, and that comes at the compromise of sleep. Or in the emigreed case, it comes at the compromise of spending time with my children. Or it comes at the compromise of not working from home.

21:57They're not celebrated things. And I do think there is a tension at the moment and potentially a generational tension that is people who've been brought up with the girl boss that are trying to unlearn and people who've been brought up professionally in the COVID era going, what do you mean I have to go into the office three days or what do you mean that I have to come in on the day that's my work from home day because something's changed in that but that's my day there is this tension of like we need to learn a little bit more here in the new era and we have to unlearn a little bit more from the last era that I see playing out a lot because so many people go I don't know how you do it all and I'm like I have about five hours sleep or you know I have to forgo that friendship thing or you have to say no to the thing and it is uncomfortable to say that sometimes those successes come at the cost of personal pays.

22:44I know Emma Greed's been talked about a lot in this podcast, but I do want to bring this up because given the recent headlines surrounding the commentary that she made about working from home specifically. So if you're not familiar with that, this is what she said. Work from home culture is career suicide. I believe that it's disproportionately affects women. If anybody thinks that you'll get on the same promotion or the same pay increase without the visibility and the proximity by the people who make the decisions, they are crazy. Your boss can't tell you, but I'll tell you. This is what she told Elle.

23:12Swarm of negativity surrounding this. Why do you think people were pissed? Well, there's some pretty loaded language in there. I mean, to use the phrase career suicide is pretty loaded language, probably the most loaded you could say. Yeah. I think people were outraged because it's not what they want to hear. People do like working from home. They want to be able to put their washing on at lunchtime or take their dog for a walk or pick up their kids from school. And that behaviour and that culture is conducive of those things. The Rogue article that I referenced up top, they actually interviewed Megan McConnell and she said that women executives in the C-suite now make up 29%, so just under a third.