Gamine style

[floodette]

I'vre heard so much description bout this style who's suppose to be cute, innocent but also sophisticate. Icons (according to trinny & susannah's book) are audrey hepburn, jackie o, and dare i say imho audrey tautou and vanessa hudgens?

what irked me is that clothes that coems across as gamine are usually tunic style dress, quite heavy on printing. while this style is indeed very cute, i noticed that audrey hepburn at elast almost always wear tailored and non-print clothes.

so what's the 'real' description of gamine? is cute dress always = gamine? enlighten, pls...

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ I never would have thought of Jackie and gamine in the same sentence ... to me her style (in the White House years anyway) was quite dramatic. Otherwise, perhaps, classic ...

To me, gamine implies petite, and Jackie was tall and regal ... as she should be, being a Leo

 

[dasydz]

Gamin(e) literally means a mischievous kid, like a street urchin. So in fashion/ style terms, to me it's always connoted a cool ('effortless') tomboyish (adolescent-boy) quality, usually applied to small-framed lithe women. Short hair helps.

Jean Seberg (in A bout de souffle or Bonjour Tristesse) is probably the paradigmatic example of the gamine for me. The gamine (like Seberg) can be very seductive, even a coquette--- but not in a frilly girly attention-seeking way... more insouciant & sly... the image that comes to me is, like a playful cat.

Audrey Tatou's a good contemporary example. I'd throw in, say, Clemence Poesy or Lou Doillon-- who, even with long hair or wearing very sexy dresses, still exude something of the cool beautiful teenage boy. (Charlotte Gainsbourg, in earlier incarnations, seemed gamine to me-- but now she seems too tall & too strong & adult, in a way, to be 'gamine'-- which has an element of 'cute' & 'small' & 'childlike'.)

The original character of Lolita as described in Nabokov's novel has something of the gamine (Nabokov calls it "nymphet"), but of course now the term "Lolita" for us (in pop culture & fashion) connotes something distinctly different from the gamine (more self-consciously sexual &/or girly, say).

Audrey Hepburn is very much the gamine... eg in Sabrina or Funny Face or or Breakfast at Tiffany's etc.... but the important thing is, the gamine quality is precisely *not* the "sophisticated" side of those characters-- but the fact that, even at her most chic & sophisticated (wearing couture creations), she still retains something of the tomboyish girl she was/is-- who climbed & hid in trees (Sabrina), or was a wild homeless untamable child (Holly Golightly), or defiant tomboy (Funny Face). That's why Jackie is *not* gamine-- she's sophisticated like Audrey, but one doesn't see the playful (tom)boy in her.

 

[dasydz]

Refining the above characterization: it's not so much "teenage boy" as "boy". And though it has an element of tomboyishness, it's not masculine... I wouldn't say androgynous, either. The *girl* element is just as important, I think-- it's the frisson of the tomboyish girl in the pretty dress, wearing it with the insouciance of a playful tomboy... but very much a girl. Hence the Jean Seberg & Audrey Hepburn paradigms. Maybe Alexa Chung is a good example?

 

[Florecita86]

Don't forget about Mia Farrow back in the 60's

 

[designerleather]

Yes Gamine = street kid. Victor Hugo talks a lot about the gamine in Les Miserables

 

[FashionTopFace]

love it!

 

[xing]

I don't think clemence posey can be considered gamine. she's more effortless and androgynous than gamine. gamine, to me, is andro plus playfulness.

 

[xing]

^to add, gamine is like a female peter pan.

 

[fashionista-ta]

Michelle Williams is a good example, I think ...

 

[lafindesiecle]

i think there's some confusion between gamine and ingenue here -- jackie o i think was seen with a bit of that ingenue character. the ingenue is that wide-eyed sophisticated-but-naieve extremely feminine character -- the gamine is someone boyish, lanky and flat-chested, a bit playful or mischievious...

winona ryder... audrey tautou... shannyn sossamon at times.... bridget fonda in 'single white female'... luc besson's female characters -- nikita, nathalie portman in león..... i think peter pan is a great example, as peter is usually played by gamine young women in plays in fashion, kate lanphear, tao okamoto...

for clothes i don't think of printed tunic dresses at all, i think of playfully-worn menswear, or a little dress with a fedora, the slightest bit dishevelled... somewhere between rag and bone + rachel comey...

 

[Bella_Lass334]

the first person i thought of when i read "cute but sophisticated" was zooey deschanel. the second person i thought of was the cherry blossom girl: www.thecherryblossomgirl.com . Not that she's especially an icon, but she does pull together some amazing looks.

 

[Bella_Lass334]

all by thecherryblossomgirl.com

 

[Bella_Lass334]

several more...
again, all by thecherryblossomgirl.com

 

[masha-m]

Cookies (http://c00kies-est-une-cuillere-a-absinthe.blogspot.com/) is quintessential Gamin style for me.

source: c00kies-est-une-cuillere-a-absinthe.blogspot.com

 

[xing]

^^cherryblossomgirl has awesome style but she reminds me more of a romantic style than gamine. She's too feminine and girly and sweet to be gamine I feel. same thing with zooey deschanel.

lafindesiecle, I think you said what I was trying to say perfectly!