Year of the Shop Rat (w/ Emilia Petrarca)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thenewgarde.substack.comNew York Fashion Week is upon us! To kick off the Spring 2025 season, Alyssa sits down with one of the city’s most prolific fashion writers, Emilia Petrarca, whose popular shopping newsletter, Shop Rat, turns a year old this month. Emilia gives a play-by-play of her climb up the masthead — which involves stints at W Magazine and New York Magazine’s The Cut — and shares the most important lessons she’s learned along the way, including the realizations that there’s no such thing as a “dream job” anymore, and the career path promised in The Devil Wears Prada is obsolete in today’s media landscape. Tune in to find out how she pioneered the nepo baby beat, why a story about Paris Hilton changed the trajectory of her career, how she learned to follow her instincts, hone her voice, and go with her gut, what it was like to attend runway shows alongside Cathy Horyn, why getting offline and going outside are crucial for creativity, the most important (and fun!) parts of reporting from Fashion Month, how she decided it was time to bet on herself and do her own thing, the ups and downs of navigating freelance life while starting a publication from scratch, how to know you have a hit story on your hands, the power of saying “no,” what’s in store for year two of Shop Rat, and so much more.