A gamine is a slim, elegant young womanwho is, or is perceived to be, mischievous, teasing or sexually appealing. 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, but in the 20th century, came to be applied in its more modern sense.
Lexicography
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". For example, in a press release of 1964, impresario Andrew 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 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 gamins.
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, 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, notably in Way Down East ; and Louise Brooks, whose short bobbedhairstyle, widely copied in the 1920s, came to be regarded as both a gamine and a "Bohemian" trait In 1936, Charlie Chaplin cast his then-girlfriend Paulette Goddard as an orphaned gamine 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 : for example, in the films, Sabrina and Funny Face. Hepburn also played the role of the gamine Gigi in New York in the play of that name, based on the novel 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, who played the leading role in the 1958 musical film of Gigi; Jean Seberg, best known in Bonjour Tristesse and Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle ; Jean Simmons, for example, in Angel Face ; and Rita Tushingham, whose first starring role was in A Taste of Honey. The French singer Juliette Gréco, who emerged from Bohemian Paris in the late 1940s to become an international star in the 1950s, also had gamine qualities.
1960s and beyond
In many ways, the "gamine look" of the 1950s paved the way for the success of the following English models: Jean Shrimpton, one of the first to promote the mini-skirt in 1965; Twiggy, who became "The Face of '66"; and Kate Moss, 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. Gamines share similarities with the modern, cinematic "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" stock character.
