It Girls - by Caroline Young (Hardcover)

About the Book

From bohemian artists' muses to today's socialites, including Nell Gwyn, Clara Bow, Josephine Baker, Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears, the Kardashians, and more, The It Girls delves into the history and lives of these explosive, trend-setting women, whose much-disseminated images have defined notions of beauty, celebrity, sex, and scandal.

Book Synopsis

From bohemian artists' muses to today's socialites, including Nell Gwyn, Clara Bow, Josephine Baker, Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears, the Kardashians, and more, The It Girls delves into the history and lives of these explosive, trend-setting women, whose much-disseminated images have defined notions of beauty, celebrity, sex, and scandal.

Review Quotes

A dazzling line-up of famous and forgotten ldquo;Itrdquo; girls from the past and present are expertly brought to life by Caroline Youngrsquo;s storytelling. Inspiring and infuriating, they blazed a trail and were girl bosses before the term was coined. The book and its subjects are sensory overload at its finest!

Both idols and scapegoats, ldquo;Itrdquo; girls from Nell Gwyn to Kim Kardashian and K-pop princesses have always reflected the aspirations and insecurities of their times. This juicy history functions both as a how-to manual and a cautionary tale thatrsquo;s more relevant than ever in the influencer economy.

Caroline Young traces the phenomenon of the girl whose name comes to be on everyonersquo;s lips, from courtesans and mistresses, through dancers and actresses, to the girls who embodied the style of a decade and the zeitgeist of a social trend. As Young clearly shows, the structures of celebrity that support them today may be very different, as are questions of who controls the marketing of their brands, but the perennial fascination with a girl who stands for sex, style, and magnetism right now is as strong today as it ever was. What Young achieves here is to link the ldquo;Itrdquo; girl with intelligence, wit, and individuality, not just notoriety, exposure, and exploitation, thereby expanding the meaning of ldquo;Itrdquo; into more complex and compassionate terrain.

About the Author

Caroline Young is an author from Edinburgh, Scotland, who specializes in film, fashion, and popular culture. Her previous works include Hitchcock's Heroines, Living with Coco Chanel, Audrey in Paris, The Fabulous Frances Farquharson, and Crazy Old Ladies: The Story of Hag Horror, which was nominated for both a Rondo Hatton Award 2023 and the 2022 Richard Wall Memorial Award.