BDG’s Nylon Pulls Fashionista EIC for Editorial Director Role

Kali Hays

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In the run-up to its print relaunch under new owner Bustle Digital Group, Nylon magazine has found an editorial director.

Alyssa Vingan Klein, editor in chief of fashion web site Fashionista, is joining Nylon in the role starting early next month. She will report to Emma Rosenblum, who BDG just hired from Elle magazine to be editor in chief of its new lifestyle group.

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In her role, Klein will oversee all editorial operations for Nylon, including the relaunch of its print product on a “special editions” schedule beginning next year. The magazine went digital-only in 2017 after nearly 20 years in print.

Rosenblum characterized Klein as “a rising star in media” and said she’s “always admired her work.”

“She’s a talented editor with an eye for the next big thing and I know she’ll bring that passion and sophistication to Nylon,” Rosenblum added. “We’re excited to see what she achieves in her new role.”

As for Vingan Klein, she remembers “religiously” reading Nylon as a teenager in Virginia.

“I loved the under-the-radar aspect of the magazine’s content,” she said. “I look forward to working on reestablishing Nylon as a title that influences and drives the cultural conversation.”

Before joining Fashionista in 2013, where she started as a senior reporter, Vingan Klein worked as the web editor of Marie Claire for two years and earlier worked at Stylecaster.

BDG at the end of June acquired Nylon for an undisclosed price in a cash and equity deal, making it the growing media company’s seventh acquisition in the last few years. It also marked BDG’s first foray into non-digital media, given that Nylon started in 1999 as a print magazine. BDG plans to dip its toe into the print world with Nylon, starting with some special issues in 2020.

As for its earlier acquisitions, most of which have been distressed (meaning inexpensive) digital-only assets like Mic, The Outline and Gawker, the latter seems to be giving BDG the most trouble. After buying the site out of a prolonged bankruptcy case, Gawker has suffered two false starts. Early this year its only two reporters left in protest over editorial director Carson Griffith. BDG then in late March made a relatively high-profile hire in making Dan Peres its editor in chief, but that was also short-lived. Industry chatter had it that Peres was unable to lure enough talent, either because of budget constraints, optics or a combination of both, to actually revive the site and get it publishing on sectors of media, tech, society, entertainment and culture, snarky coverage of which the original Gawker was known for. Given this trouble, Peres and the rest of the still-small Gawker staff were let go last month and the relaunch put on hold indefinitely.

Nylon, being much more in BDG’s wheelhouse of coverage geared toward Millennial women, not biting reportage and industry gossip, seems less likely to meet the same fate.

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