Nymphet Alumni
On the Amber Valletta, Korean Playlists, Lola's Tweets, and more.
Nymphet Alumni (@nymphetalumni) — modern culture’s brain trust. Since launching the podcast in 2021, Sam, Alexi, and Biz have established themselves as zeitgeist-whisperers, tactical divers probing the interstitial zones of high and low culture. Amid a trend forecasting gold rush, the former Tumblr girls remain singular in their ability to parse signal from the noise. Recently, Biz launched American Style, a sharp newsletter on what people are wearing and why, and rumor has it there’s another big announcement on the way from the team.
We’re excited to have the ladies of Nymphet Alumni on Silk, and even more excited to hear about what they’ve been curating.
What draws you to curation?
We spend a lot of time observing and consuming culture, online and off. Curation allows us to collect, identify and connect the dots between what we find interesting! It’s a practice that helps us meditate on larger themes we’re drawn to, instead of losing individual threads in the constant churn of culture.
Alexi — Sweats collections by Norma Kamali (1980–1982)
This line was released in 1980 and described as “a new idea for active-casual fashion for day and night.” Produced by women’s workwear retailer Jones Apparel, the collection included “forty-eight pieces, all gray terry, from evening gowns to tops” — lines went out the door at New York department stores, people couldn’t get enough!
This stuff is my Roman Empire — the combination of the elongated, compressive ribbed cuffs with the volume and gathered drapery of the skirts and sleeves is a visual/sensory dream come true, and the idea of these quasi-Victorian silhouettes reimagined in locker-room, Army/Navy store fabric still feels genius. These pieces also remind me a lot of the bicycle craze for women in the 1890s, which brings me ancient feminist joy. Norma Kamali spoke to Vogue about the collection’s genesis and legacy in this 2014 interview.
Biz — Lola Dement Myers’ Tweets
I just launched a newsletter called American Style and I have a moodboard of different things I feel speak to the mission behind it (if even tangentially) — photos, book and magazine covers, quotes and a few of Lola Dement-Meyers’ tweets.
One thread I’m exploring in American Style is this sort of unspoken imperative that people’s vibes are cogent and organized by some unifying principle — that all of our parts “match,” even if in absurd, non-linear ways. Lola has this smart and funny series of tweets pointing to these vibe-fractures or disconnects — immediately on the moodboard!
Sam — Kiss on the Beach (1953), From Here to Eternity
World War II, sealed with a kiss. I’ve never seen this movie, but this image has been in my dreams ever since I rewatched Shrek 2. I love a vision of true romance wrapped with a sense of patriotism I don’t fully understand. Images like this are few and far in between, but they’re almost always from the 1950s. Keeping this picture in my pocket as summer draws near.
Alexi — Parallel Encyclopedia 1 and 2 (2007 and 2016), Batia Suter
These gorgeous tomes are visual encyclopedias of found images grouped by association. Doesn’t sound that interesting, but the compositions are thought-provoking and the images speak for themselves— prehistoric artifacts, scientific diagrams, crime scene photos, magazine advertisements, and many, many more. The layouts remind me of the photo essays pioneered by LIFE magazine, one of my favorite archives to revisit. This is the kind of thing I imagine might come in handy if we were to give an alien civilization a strategically nonchalant overview of life on Earth without giving away too much.
Biz — Amber Valletta (1993), Peter Lindbergh
This is also on the American Style moodboard, it’s from the photobook 10 Women by Peter Lindbergh that I found in a small-town used bookstore. It’s a portrait series of the big ‘80s/‘90s supermodels, like Kate Moss and Christy Turlington (with a summary of what makes them attractive and unique and a foreword by Karl Lagerfeld, which is quite good). I love this photo of Amber Valetta. I think it has the quality of a bygone time of youth and nomadism — she looks like a teen runaway having a cup of coffee at a diner.
Sam — The Dallas Nine
I live in Texas, large and empty. Folks down here are forced to get creative with their time. I often find myself listlessly wandering a checkerboard of small towns without much more than a Dairy Queen and a Lowe’s Grocery Store to their names. As a result, I’ve become a frequent user of the Texas Historical Association’s Atlas of Historic Sites. I use this tool to find things to look at in towns with populations teetering under 2,000. If I get lucky, I’ll come across a New Deal Post Office Mural. If I strike gold, it’ll be one painted by a member of the Dallas Nine. The Dallas Nine were a group of North Texas artists active between 1928 and 1945. They painted things like dead cow bones and dust bowl scenes of despair. Sometimes, they painted post office murals.
Alexi — 엿날노래 (back in the day) Playlists
My relationship to music has been a bit disturbing to say the least— once a competitively obscure Last.fm warrior, I eventually found myself operating my own k-pop streaming farm in the depths of my stan addiction... I’ve ended up in a pretty ascetic place and try to limit music consumption to special occasions, but if I’m feeling really decadent and in the mood for discovery, I’ll throw on one of these old-timey Korean playlist videos from a channel called SoulMusic-TV. They also double as scenic screensavers, and their comment sections are always full of heartbreaking, poetic reflections from Korean netizens in their 50s and 60s. Here’s a translation of one comment:
In the summer of the '70s, I vacationed at Mallipo Beach.
My girlfriend at the time, who was an express bus guide, and I pitched a tent, built a bonfire, played guitar.
Singing “Two Little Stars”
We stayed up all night...
I wonder, under which sky and with whom is she living now?
I'm sure she has a son or daughter and is living happily.
She has such a pretty smile.
I wish I could see her face on the street.
Biz — Biba Muesli
This one’s on my life moodboard. In the 1970s, London fashion designer Biba opened up a seven-story department store in Kensington. It was called Big Biba and all seven stories were totally designed, in the tradition of the great British department store. The whole place was done up in this sort of gilded, art deco style with this wonderful pastel rainbow glo-light ceiling (in a restored 1930s restaurant called the Rainbow Room). I love good stores as third places and I am particularly struck by this label for Biba muesli, something so simple with so much beauty and lifestyle to it.
Sam — Cross Bones Style (1998), Cat Power
The styling in this video reminds me of my days as a server. I had a deep love for plastic bracelets and music that felt both shy and sinister. I like how Cat Power decided to forefront normal women from the 1990s. I like how her yellow nail polish made me feel uneasy. A true indie cursive singing pioneer.
Who else would you want to see on on WW?
Rian Phin, Batia Suter.
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