It girl

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Poster for the film "It" (1927), starring Clara Bow

An "It girl" is an attractive young woman who is perceived to have both sex appeal and an incredibly engaging personality.

The expression it girl originated in British upper-class society around the turn of the 20th century. It gained further attention in 1927 with the popularity of the Paramount Studios film It, starring Clara Bow. In the earlier usage, a woman was especially perceived as an "it girl" if she had achieved a high level of popularity without flaunting her sexuality. Today, the term is used to apply to fame and beauty simply. The Oxford English Dictionary distinguishes between the chiefly American usage of "a glamorous, vivacious, or sexually attractive actress, model, etc." and the chiefly British usage of "a young, rich woman who has achieved celebrity because of her socialite lifestyle."

The terms "it boy" or "it man" sometimes describe a male exhibiting similar traits.

History

Early use

An early literary usage of it in this sense is found in a 1904 short story by Rudyard Kipling, which contains the line "'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women stay in a man's memory if they once walk down a street."

Elinor Glyn, the notorious British novelist who wrote the book titled It and its subsequent screenplay, lectured:

With It, you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man. It can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction.

Glyn first rose to fame as the author of the scandalous 1907 bestseller Three Weeks. She is widely credited with the invention of the "it girl" concept: although the slang predates her book and film, she was responsible for the term's impact on the culture of the 1920s.

In 1927, the Paramount Studios film was planned as a special showcase for its popular star Clara Bow, and her performance introduced the term "it" to the cultural lexicon. The film plays with the notion that "it" is a quality which eschews definitions and categories; consequently, the girl portrayed by Bow is an amalgam of an ingenue and a femme fatale, with some qualities later portrayed by Madonna's latter day "Material Girl" incarnation. By contrast, Bow's rival in the script is equally young and comely, as well as rich and well-bred, yet is portrayed as not possessing "it". Clara Bow later said she wasn't sure what "it" meant, although she identified Lana Turner and later Marilyn Monroe

The fashion component of the "it girl" originated with Glyn's elder sister, couturier Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, known professionally as "Lucile". Lucile managed exclusive salons in London, Paris, and New York and was the first designer to present her collections on a stage, complete with the theatrical accouterments of lights and music (inspiring the modern runway or catwalk show), and was famous for making sexuality an aspect of fashion through her provocative lingerie and lingerie-inspired clothes. She also specialized in dressing trendsetting stage and film performers, ranging from the stars of the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway to silent screen icons such as Mary Pickford and Irene Castle.

As early as 1917, Lucile herself used the term "it" to style in her fashion column for Harper's Bazaar: "... I saw a very ladylike and well-bred friend of mine in her newest Parisian frock ... she felt she was 'it' and delighted."

Modern "it girls"

In the late 1970s, the term started to distance itself from Bow, as magazines used it to describe Diana Ross. Since the 1980s, the term "it girl" has been used slightly differently, referring to a wealthy, ordinarily unemployed, young woman who is pictured in tabloids going to many parties, often in the company of other celebrities, receiving media coverage despite no real personal achievements or TV hosting/presenting. 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."

In 2023, Matthew Schneier, for The Cut, defined the New York City "it girl" as being: "Famous for being out, famous for being young, famous for being fun, famous for being famous." Schneier added that an "it girl" does not define itself that way, but that "magazine writers, newspaper columnists, photographers" do. The prominence of an "it girl" is often temporary; some of the rising "it girls" will either become fully-fledged celebrities, commonly initially via appearances on reality TV shows or series; lacking such an accelerant, their popularity will generally fade. Schneier claimed that achieving obscurity must be considered one: "An undeniable celebrity is not an “It” girl."

Editors at The Cut also included a list of over 150 ‘"It" girls. Called 'It' Girl Inflation, the article praised the Internet for increasing supply and demand, or democratizing the 'It' Girl. Notable New York "it" girls included Tinsley Mortimer, Olivia Palermo, Fabiola Beracasa Beckman, Amanda Hearst, Leigh Lezark, Vashtie Kola, Cat Marnell, Audrey Gelman, Tavi Gevinson, Petra Collins, Jemima Kirke, Barbie Ferreira, Sahara Lin, Chloe Wise, Lexie Smith, Emily Ratajkowski, Hari Nef, Salem Mitchell, Julia Fox, and Eve Jobs.

Examples

1900s

  • Evelyn Nesbit (1884 or 1885–1967), American artists' model, photographic model, chorus girl, and silent film actress, whose rise to fame around 1900 has been called "the birth of the 'It Girl'".
  • Brenda Dean Paul (1907–1959), British silent film actress and socialite.

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

  • Tinsley Mortimer (b. 1975) American socialite and television personality.
  • Charlotte Ronson (b. 1977) English fashion designer and socialite, based in the U.S.
  • Fan Bingbing (b. 1981), Chinese actress.
  • Nicky Hilton (b. 1983) American socialite, member of the Hilton family by birth and of the Rothschild family through marriage.
  • Alexa Chung (b. 1983) English model and television personality. Described as the "21st century it girl."
  • Mischa Barton (b. 1986) British-American actress. Entratainment Weekly, as well< as other tabloids, labelled her as an "It Girl" in the early 2000s.
  • Olivia Palermo (b. 1986), American socialite and television personality.
  • Sara Schätzl (b. 1987), German writer and actress, was labelled an "it girl" by the German tabloid press in the late 2000s.
  • Cory Kennedy (b. 1990) American Internet celebrity and model, described as "the Internet's First It Girl."

2010s

2020s

Gallery

Film and theater

"It boy"

The term "it boy" (sometimes "it man") has been used to describe a male exhibiting similar qualities to an "it girl". In 1950, Bow identified Robert Mitchum as an it boy. In 1995, Entertainment Weekly referred to Leonardo DiCaprio as "Hollywood's 'It' Boy" because of his "blazing talent and dashing baby-faced looks – a combination of the mystic and the mischievous – that have the praise faucets gushing buckets".

2010s

South Korean boy-band BTS was called an "It boy" band by Billboard in 2017. In 2018, Vanity Fair referred to Timothée Chalamet as an 'It' Boy". In 2019, Jimin was first called "it boy" for his role in the world of fashion by the Spanish website Flooxer Now and described as such by other media.

2020s

Later, in 2020, Jimin was named "Global 'It' boy", dubbed so by Naver. In 2021, Teen Vogue referred to Yeonjun, as "K-pop's fourth-generation 'It' boy" due to his participation in New York Fashion Week.

Gallery

See also

References

Notes

Further reading

  • Bigham, Randy Bryan. (2012). Lucile: Her Life by Design
  • Brown, Leah Marie. (2015, 2016, 2017). The It Girls series. Book one: Faking It < ISBN:1-616-50813-2 >; Book two: Finding It < ISBN:1616508140 >; Book three: Working It < ISBN:1616508159 >; Book four: Owning It < ISBN:1516101227 >
  • (1986) The "It" Girls: Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, the couturière 'Lucile' and Elinor Glyn, romantic novelist. London: Hamish Hamilton. 
  • Evans, Caroline (2013). The Mechanical Smile: modernism and the first fashion shows in France and America, 1900–1929. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300189537. 
  • Marwick, Arthur (2004). It: a history of human beauty. London: Hambledon and London. ISBN 1852854480. 
  • (1976) The "It" Girl: The Incredible Story of Clara Bow. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 0-440-14068-4. 
  • Stenn, David (1988). Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-24125-9. 

External links

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