It girl
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- For the book series by Cecily von Ziegesar, see The It Girl.
An It girl is a charming, sexy young woman, or one who has just broken into mainstream cinema (strongly debated). The "it", which she has or is, is used in the same inspecific way as the French term "Je ne sais quoi" ("I don't know what"). The reign of an "It girl" is temporary; they will either become a fully-fledged celebrity or their popularity will fade. The term "it boy," much less frequently used, is the male equivalent.
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[edit] Clara Bow and It (1927)
The term was coined by British romance novelist and screenwriter Elinor Glyn to describe actress Clara Bow when she appeared with success in the Hollywood silent film It in 1927. Based on Glyn's novella of the same title, the movie was planned as a special showcase for the popular Paramount Studios star. Owing to Glyn's widely publicized pronouncement, the term "It," a euphemism for sex-appeal, not only catapulted Bow to fame but became a catch phrase, eventually entering the cultural lexicon. Bow's contemporary and friend, the actress Louise Brooks, who popularised the bobbed hairstyle of the 1920s, was also widely described as an "It girl", especially retrospectively. Some feminist critics have characterized the use of a third person pronoun to describe a human being as sexual objectification[citation needed], although the sense is a woman who has "It," not a woman who is "It."
Bow's film was turned into a musical called The It Girl in 2001, which opened at the York Theatre Company off-Broadway starring Jean Louisa Kelly[1].
[edit] Modern "It girls"
Since 1927 the term has been extended beyond the world of film, referring to whoever in society, fashion or the performing arts was in vogue at the time, including, from the 1960s onwards, singer and Rolling Stones' muse Marianne Faithfull; Talitha Getty, second wife of John Paul Getty; actress and comedienne Goldie Hawn; 1980s "wild child" Amanda de Cadenet (christened by Compton Miller as "patron saint of It Girls": Who's Really! Who, 1997); socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson; fashion writers Plum and Lucy Sykes; fashion icon and actress Chloe Sevigny; actress and "boho"-queen Sienna Miller; Socialite/Actress Scarlett Johansson and Lindsay Lohan; Iconic Pop Star Britney Spears and broadcaster and actress Ksenia Sobchak (described by the Guardian as "Moscow's answer to Paris Hilton, the American heiress, and Russia's chief "it" girl": 3 June 2006).
The writer William Donaldson observed that, having initially been coined in the 1920s, the term was applied in the 1990s to describe "a young woman of noticeable 'sex appeal' who occupied herself by shoe shopping and party-going" (Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics, 2002). At around the same time the term "posh tart" was coined as a broad equivalent, though this tended to be reserved for those, such as Palmer-Tomkinson and Lady Victoria Hervey, daughter of the 6th Marquess of Bristol, who came from the "higher" echelons of society. In 2006, a fashion journalist, Emma Hill, declared in the Sunday Times Style supplement, "Forget Sienna Miller, forget Paris Hilton. These days, the real It girls are make-up artists. Just look at Charlotte Tilbury and Jemma Kidd" (22 October 2006).
[edit] External link
- Clara Bow, the original It girl.
