Gamine

A chic, elegant, thin, young woman

A gamine is a slim, often boyish, elegant young woman who is, or is perceived to be, mischievous or teasing. The word gamine is a French word, the feminine form of gamin, originally meaning urchin, waif or playful, naughty child. It was used in English from about the mid 19th century (for example, by William Makepeace Thackeray in 1840 in one of his Parisian sketches), but in the 20th century, came to be applied in its more modern sense.

In 1997 the publisher HarperCollins drew up a list of 101 words – one a year – that defined the years 1896 to 1997. Gamine was chosen for 1899, being described by Philip Howard in The Times as follows:

Gamine has been used particularly of such women in the performing arts or world of fashion. In that context, the closest English word – of Anglo Norman origin – is probably "waif" (although "gamine" is often seen as conveying an additional sense of style and chic). For example, in a press release of 1964, impresario Andrew Loog Oldham described the 17 year old singer Marianne Faithfull as "shy, wistful, waif like"; and writer and musician John Amis referred to German born actress Luise Rainer (1910–2014) as Paul Muni's "waif wife" in the 1937 film, The Good Earth. Gaminerie has sometimes been used in English with reference to the behaviour or characteristics of gamin(e)s.

In the early 20th century, silent films brought to public attention a number of actresses who sported a gamine look. These included the Canadian born Mary Pickford (1892–1979), who became known as "America's Sweetheart" and, with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, was one of the founders of the film production company United Artists; Lillian Gish (1893–1993), notably in Way Down East (1920); and Louise Brooks (1906–1985), whose short bobbed hair, widely copied in the 1920s, came to be regarded as both a gamine and a "Bohemian" trait (this style having first appeared among the Paris demi monde before World War I and among London art students during the war.) In 1936, Charlie Chaplin cast his then girlfriend Paulette Goddard (1910–1990) as an orphaned gamine (credited as "A Gamin") in one of his last silent films, Modern Times.

In the 1950s "gamine" was applied notably to the style and appearance of the Belgian born actress Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993): for example, in the films, Sabrina (1954) and Funny Face (1957). Hepburn also played the role of the gamine Gigi in New York (1951) in the play of that name, based on the novel (1945) by Colette, who had personally "talent spotted" her when she was filming in Monte Carlo. On film and in photographs, Hepburn's short hair and petite figure created a distinct and enduring "look", well defined by Don Macpherson, who cited her "naïveté which did not rule out sophistication", and described her as "the first gamine to be accepted as overpoweringly chic". Other film actresses of the period regarded as gamines included Leslie Caron (b. 1931), who played the leading role in the 1958 musical film of Gigi; Jean Seberg (1938–1979), best known in Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and Jean Luc Godard's Breathless (1960); Shirley MacLaine (b. 1934), in films like Some Came Running (1958), Hot Spell (1958), and The Apartment (1960); and Jean Simmons (1929–2010), for example, in Angel Face (1953). The French singer Juliette Gréco (1927–2020), who emerged from Bohemian Paris in the late 1940s to become an international star in the 1950s, also had gamine qualities.

Audrey Hepburn's most iconic "gamine" role, as the main character Holly Golightly, came in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's. In many ways, the "gamine look" of the 1950s paved the way for the success of the following English models: Jean Shrimpton (b. 1942), one of the first to promote the miniskirt in 1965; Twiggy (b. Lesley Hornby, 1949), who became "The Face of '66"; and Kate Moss (b. 1974), associated in the 1990s with the "waif" look and what, notably through an advertising campaign for Calvin Klein in 1997, became known as "heroin chic." Moss was part of a trend of "wafer" thin models which was satirized in Neil Kerber's strip cartoon "Supermodels" in the magazine Private Eye.

Others who have been described as gamines include: Danish French actress Anna Karina (1940–2019); American actresses Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971), Mia Farrow (b. 1945), Liza Minnelli (b. 1946), Sissy Spacek (b. 1949), Jennifer Jason Leigh (b. 1962), Calista Flockhart (b. 1964), Bridget Fonda (b. 1964), Mary Stuart Masterson (b. 1966), Julia Roberts (b. 1967), Winona Ryder (b. 1971), Selma Blair (b. 1972), Gwyneth Paltrow (b. 1972), Michelle Williams (b. 1980), Anne Hathaway (b. 1982), and Rooney Mara (b. 1985); English actresses Susannah York (1939–2011), Rita Tushingham (b. 1942), Helena Bonham Carter (b. 1966), Tara FitzGerald (b. 1967), Keira Knightley (b. 1985), Carey Mulligan (b. 1985), and Emma Watson (b. 1990); Portuguese actress Maria de Medeiros (b. 1965); French actresses Juliette Binoche (b. 1964), Caroline Proust (b. 1967), Vanessa Paradis (b. 1972), and Audrey Tautou (b. 1976); English French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (b. 1971); Australian actress Mia Wasikowska (b. 1989); Israeli American actress Natalie Portman (b. 1981); English American actress Lily Collins (b. 1989); Canadian model Linda Evangelista (b. 1965); American models Tina Chow (1950–1992) and Kristen McMenamy (b. 1964); Welsh French model Lucie de la Falaise (b. 1973); Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia (b. 1975); and American singer Cat Power (b. Chan Marshall, 1972). Penelope Chetwode (1910–1986), later Lady Betjeman, wife of the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, was described by Betjeman's biographer A. N. Wilson as "gamine of feature, but large breasted". Corinne Bailey Rae alleged that she was called a gamine in her song, "Choux Pastry Heart" (2005).

Among the notable gamine characters of film are: Gelsomina, the street performer from La Strada (1954), played by Giulietta Masina (1921–1994); Bree Daniels, the prostitute played by Jane Fonda (b. 1937) in Klute (1971) (whose hairstyle was sometimes referred to as the "Klute shag"); Nikita, the titular punkish junkie in Luc Besson's 1990 film, played by Anne Parillaud (b. 1960); Amélie, in the 2001 romantic comedy of that name, played by Audrey Tautou; and, most recently, Alice Cullen, the vampire played by Ashley Greene (b. 1987) in The Twilight Saga (2008). Gamines share similarities with the modern, cinematic "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" stock character.

In the modern romance The Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon, one of the female characters is a 'gamine', wife of the Doctor Black, the surgeon of Ruth Patchett, the heroine of the story.