List of chics
This is a list of notable chics.
Art-school chic
See Hippie chic
Ashcan chic
Term used in the United States c.2005 for a "homeless" style, similar to boho-chic, that was initially popularised in Greenwich Village. Its main features were floppy hats, sunglasses and "dust-catcher" skirts. Bobo (i.e. bourgeois-Bohemian) chic was used in a similar sense.
Beach chic
"Beach chic" was the title of an article in 2006 by the Times fashion editor Lisa Armstrong about shopping for accessories to accompany a bikini [1]. These included a "cover-up" (e.g. a kaftan), flat sandals, a hat, a fake tan and - with the comforting footnote, "No, you will not look like a WAG [wife or girlfriend of a footballer]" - denture cleaner to whiten finger-nails. The Sunday Times referred to the Moroccan resort of Essaouira as the "boho/barefoot-chic beach" (the latter possibly a play on the term, "bare-faced cheek") [2]. See also Seaside chic.
Boho-chic
Style of fashion in the early 21st century which drew on earlier Bohemian and hippie styles. It was associated in particular with actress Sienna Miller and model Kate Moss.
Bon chic bon genre
See Parisian chic
Burnside chic
To adopt the dress, mannerisms and, especially, facial hair of American Civil War officers. Often adopted by historical re-enactors.[3]
Camilla chic
Emulating the style, of which Burberry was a feature, of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who married Charles, Prince of Wales in 2005 [4].
Chav chic
Casual chic
"Casual chic" (or "chic casual") is a difficult term to define, but can perhaps best be described as "dressing down" in a stylish way. In 2007 the clothing retailer Marks & Spencer suggested that some of the elements of "chic casual" were skinny jeans, "longline, clingy jerseys", "statement" bags and chunky jewellery, slouchy sweaters and hoodies with comfortable flats. Singer Victoria Beckham was identified as epitomising this style [5]. Easy chic ("breezy blouses, slouchy knits and sexy denim" [5]) has similar connotations.
Heroin chic
"Crack chick" is a style derived from the grunge days, it is not unlike the 'deralique' fashion depicted in Zoolander. The style in defined by black eyes, heroin, crack pipes, bruised and or scabbed legs, ripped stockings, lice, and hickeys. Models (most notably Kate Moss and Jamie King) representing this look are usually portrayed as being extremely skinny and pale.
Checkout chic
Referring to fashion ranges promoted by major supermarkets: "Tesco has stepped up its 'checkout chic' war with Asda by launching a design-led range of clothes to tempt female shoppers" [6]. Cheap chic was used in a similar sense, though more in terms of the comparison between prices at supermarkets and those of leading fashion houses: "You can achieve this season's look just by visiting your local supermarket" [7].
Chelsea chic
Used by the Sunday Times ("The Sloane gets a sexy revamp" [2]) for fashionable trends among well-heeled "Sloane Rangers" (a portmanteau term coined in 1975 by Peter York, style editor of Harpers & Queen, from Sloane Square and the 1950s TV series The Lone Ranger [8]) in the Chelsea area of south west London.
Coral chic
"A versatile sarong and oversized bag in this season's pink ... to hit the beach in style" (Avon cosmetics 2006) [9].
Council house chic
"Council house chic" [10] or chav chic ("Chav Chic might have sunk the house of Burberry" [11]) referred to the fashions of working class "chavs" who shared Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall's taste for Burberry check. See also Camilla chic.
Cycle chic
To be well dressed and smart in everyday clothes whilst cycling for ordinary journeys. [12] The profile of such competitive cyclists as Victoria Pendelton has helped to promote such an image.
Deadpan chic
Colorfully described as "cut and pasted and recut and refucked", Band leader Richard Jankovitch and his band the Burnside Project's latest single which refers to the deadpan chic electro scene in the band's traditional tongue-in-cheque, irrelevant style.[13]
EcoChic
EcoChic means the use of eco-friendly textiles, such as organic cotton, silk and hemp, and also reconstructed clothing [14].
Geek Chic
"The look of a computer nerd" [15].
Greek Chic
"Greek Chic" is a term applied to a style of dress that is popular in the Mediterranean and often employed by Greek shipowners in particular. It was popularized as a term to describe Aristotle and Jackie Onassis.
Goth chic
Title of a "connoisseur's guide" by Gavin Baddeley (2002) to dark or Gothic culture. Among those associated with the "goth look" were the late 1970s punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees, American punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, formed in 2000, and Betty Curse, described by The Times in 2006 as the "princess of Goth pop" [16].
A waif-like, drug addicted look of the mid 1990s associated in particular with the model Kate Moss.
Hick chic
"Hick chic" was the subject of an article in Country Life in 2006 by Carla Carlisle, American-born wife of former British Member of Parliament, Sir Kenneth Carlisle. Lady Carlisle cited a friend's description of the term: "it's farmers' markets, four-wheel drive cars, labradors, Harris Tweed, Shaker furniture, Emma Bridgewater [tableware] ..." [17]. "Hick" derives from "Old Hickory", a nickname for Andrew Jackson, US President 1829-37, a frontiersman who, like hickory wood, was known for his toughness.
High Street chic
Applied to the sort of "everyday" sense of style that might be spotted in any metropolitan or provincial setting; most likely to be associated with prevailing "shop window" fashions. In 2004 the Observer wrote of the singer Dido that "she drifts on stage dressed in high-street chic: faded denim and a tracksuit top, which she slips off to reveal a pink camisole vest" [18]. Samantha Cameron, wife of British Conservative Party leader David Cameron was described in 2006 as "spurn[ing] the designers ... for high street chic" [19].
Hippie chic
Broadly similar to boho-chic (see e.g. London Evening Standard Magazine, 11 March 2005), the term was associated in the mid 1990s with Tom Ford’s collections for the Italian house of Gucci and, indeed, various aspects of hippie fashion re-appeared periodically after the "Summer of Love" of 1967 when hippiedom and psychedelia were at their peak. Art-school chic [20] had roughly similar connotations. Talitha Getty chic was applied by Hedley Freeman in the Guardian [21] to the hippie style associated in the late 1960s (and since) with the actress wife (d.1971) of John Paul Getty. Talitha Getty is said to have inspired Ford's hippie-style creations.
Killer chic
Devastatingly chic, as in a dress described as "gorgeous, 100 per cent killer chic" in Bergdorf Blondes (2004), a novel by Plum Sykes, whose works were sometimes described as "chic lit" (a term that discarded the final consonant in "chick lit").
Malone chic
Malone chic is a term used to describe black people who dress up as cowboys, i.e. Karl Malone.
Maximum chic
An ironic coinage by the loafer Onslow (played by Geoffrey Hughes) in a 1995 episode of the BBC TV comedy series, Keeping Up Appearances, created by Roy Clarke: "maximum chic for me is more your laid back slobby look".[22]
Military chic
Adoption of military gear such as camouflage patterned clothing, war medals, military insignia, surplus clothing or dog tag necklaces (adopted in the American Civil War) into fashion. The term and the similar soldier chic were widely applied c.2003-5, although in fact military apparel, such as the flight jackets worn by pilots during the Second World War, had frequently influenced fashion and paradoxically was often in vogue at times of anti-war feeling, such as in the late 1960s when protests against the Vietnam War were at their height (as, indeed, after the Iraq War of 2003): "One would have thought, given the unpopularity of armed forces activity in some quarters, that 'military chic' would not be, well, chic".[23]
Nazi chic
Nazi chic is the incorporation of Nazi style clothing and culture as a form of rebellion against the status quo.
Northern chic
Occasionally applied retrospectively[24] to aspects of the musical and cultural boom generated by the rock group, the Beatles, and other artists such as Gerry & The Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas in 1962-4 (the "Mersey Sound"). "Northern" is a reference both to Northern England (as also with "Northern soul") and Northern Songs, which published compositions by the Beatles' John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Paradise chic
Coined by Marks & Spencer in 2006 for a post-boho collection: "This summer, modern classics are feminine, sophisticated and polished".[25]
Parisian chic
Frequently applied to anything stylish connected with the French capital Paris or to the style of French celebrities (e.g. actress Charlotte Gainsbourg[26] or others living in Paris, such as the English actress Kristin Scott Thomas[27]). Variants included "Left Bank" or "Right Bank" chic (or even "Left Bank chic versus Right Bank polish").[28] Gainsbourg's mother, the British-born actress Jane Birkin, remarked that she would choose "English eccentricity over Parisian chic every time", adding, "chic you can learn - it's just a form of grooming".[29]
The term bon chic bon genre or BCBG ["good style, good class"] was applied in the early 80s to the French equivalent of British "Sloane Rangers", their typical "uniform" including a mackintosh, ballet shoes, trousers, a cashmere sweater, and accessories such as a "Birkin bag" and a Cartier Tank Française wrist-watch.[30] To a large extent, it refers to upper-class, or upper-middle-class, young men and women who are well-bred, or appear so, with good bones, slim bodies, and a sophisticated, but restrained and elegant, sense of style. In the U.S., the Ralph Lauren sense of style would be the equivalent.
Porno chic
"Porn chic" (or porno-chic) was first applied to films such as Deep Throat (1972) and Emmanuelle (1974) which were commercially successful and thus tended to bring "soft" pornography into the mainstream. Subsequently it has been used to refer more generally to pornography in popular culture.
Prairie chic
Flat caps and floral dresses or aprons over jeans.[31]
Radical chic
First coined by journalist Tom Wolfe in 1970, radical chic has since entered broad usage as a derogatory term for the pretentious adoption of radical causes by celebrities, socialites, and high society.
Rich-girl chic
Said to be "oozed" by a New York socialite in Plum Sykes' The Debutante Divorcée (2006).
Rock-girl chic
"Rock-girl chic" has meant different things during differing periods of music and fashion, but was often associated with a hippie image and was similar enough as a phrase to the slightly patronising "rock chick" to convey a sense of being a "groupie". This and similar terms, such as "boho-rock" (2006), were often applied to model Kate Moss, whose mother, Linda Moss, wrote that "Kate veers effortlessly between rock-girl chic and dripping-in-diamonds elegance".[32] Moss's relationship in 2005-7 with Pete Doherty of the group Babyshambles tended to emphasise the tag.
Rural chic
Applied by the Sunday Times to a fashion collection designed and modelled by Savannah Miller, Cotswold-based sister of actress and noughties "boho-queen" Sienna Miller, for the Hong Kong based label, Shanghai Tang.[33]
Satin chic
Title of a song by Alison Goldfrapp & Will Gregory (2005).
Seaside chic
"Stripes, shorts, suits - seaside chic for the girl in every port";[34] "Seaside chic ... bright, bold colours, vibrant prints and stylish accessories rule the waves".[35] See also Beach chic. Within home decorating, Seaside Inspired home accents that are influenced by island styles and beach designs. Seaside Chic style include the use of shells, coral and beach themed accents. SeasideInspired.com[36]
Shabby chic
The deliberate use of worn and shabby materials in interior design or fashion, associated particularly with the firm of that name founded in 1989 in Santa Monica, California by the English-born designer Rachel Ashwell. The effect of limewashing timber-framed buildings has been described as "shabby chic".[37]
Shady chic
The use of stylish parasols for outdoor parties: Metro, 11 July 2006.
Soldier chic
See Military chic
Talitha Getty chic
See Hippie chic
Terrorist chic
Terrorist chic (also known as "terror chic" or "militant chic") refers to the appropriation of symbols, objects, and aesthetics related to radical militants, usually in the context of pop culture or fashion.
Tropical Chic
Tropical and Beach themed home accents that are influenced by island styles and tropical designs. Tropical Chic style includes modern appointments, yet casual island style living. TropicalChic.com[38]
Vampire chic
Similar to goth chic, but of a more explicitly Vampiric nature.
References
- ^ Times Magazine, 22 July 2006
- ^ a b Style, 18 June 2006
- ^ http://www.bing.com/search?q=burnside+chic&go=&form=QBRE&filt=all&qs=n
- ^ Susie Dent (2005) Fanboys and Overdogs
- ^ a b Your M&S, Spring 2007
- ^ Metro, 29 August 2006
- ^ Metro, 31 August 2006
- ^ See Oxford Dictionary of New Words, 1991
- ^ Avon brochure 9, 2006
- ^ Susie Dent (2004) Larpers and Shroomers
- ^ The Times Magazine, 26 June 2005
- ^ Cycle Chic Manifesto, http://www.copenhagencyclechic.com/2008/04/cycle-chic-manifesto.html
- ^ http://www.bar-none.com/album_detail.php?recordID=032862013829
- ^ http://planetark.org/wen/51195
- ^ Dent (2003) The Language Report
- ^ The Times Knowledge, 3 June 2006
- ^ Country Life, 23 November 2006
- ^ Observer", 1 August 2004
- ^ London Lite, 2 October 2006
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 1 May 2005
- ^ Guardian, 24 June 2005
- ^ Episode, Riparian Entertainments
- ^ Ken Kessler, The Times, 17 June 2006
- ^ For example, The 60s: the Beatles' Decade, UKtv 2006
- ^ Your M&S, Summer 2006
- ^ London Evening Standard magazine, 15 September 2006
- ^ See, e.g., The Times Guide to Paris Style & Fashion, October 2006
- ^ The Times Guide to Paris Style & Fashion, October 2006
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 22 October 2006
- ^ Carola Long in The Times Guide to Paris Style & Fashion, October 2006
- ^ For example, Daily Telegraph, 16 July 2003
- ^ Times Magazine, 15 July 2006
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 20 August 2006
- ^ Tatler, May 2006
- ^ Sainsbury's Fresh Ideas, Summer 2006
- ^ Seaside Style, Home Decorating News, 5 September 2008
- ^ James Boutwood, letter, Country Life, 19 October 2006
- ^ Tropical Chic Style, Home Decorating News, 2 October 2008