Jane Birkin, Edie Sedgwick, Clara Bow, Chloe Sevigny, and, if ChatGPT is to be trusted, Timothée Chalamet have all been called It Girls—a label that confesses an inability to define the possessor’s charismatic, glamorous sense of cool.
Alexa Chung inaugurated her it-ness in school, honed it as a model, refined it as a television presenter, and carried it over the finish line as a designer and photographer. She even wrote a book about the phenomenon in 2013 called, naturally, It, that resembles an analog Instagram feed. At 42, Chung is still tempting the rest of us with her style and brand collaborations (her latest collection for Madewell launches on November 11th), making us long to tromp around the Glastonbury Festival in hot pants, lace shirts, satin slips, Barbour jackets, and Hunter boots just like her.—Linda Wells
