Modern It Girls

What is an It Girl?

According to the dictionary, she is “a young woman who achieves celebrity because of her socialite lifestyle”. And it’s true that in Britain in the 1990s, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Tamara Beckwith were labelled It Girls purely because they had lots of money and went to lots of parties. But the original It Girl, as the dictionary acknowledges, was one of the most successful and revolutionary film stars of the silent era, Clara Bow. When she earned the title, it meant something completely different.

Bow is now remembered primarily as an It Girl, which is sad, considering that the term has been misapplied to any famous-for-being-famous socialite who can push herself onto a magazine cover. But that has nothing to do with what an It Girl was in the 1920s. Elinor Glyn described ‘It’ as warmth, charisma, vivacity and apparently effortless charm. And in that sense, Bow was undoubtedly an It Girl. There hasn’t been another one like her.