The “It” girl has been defined not by herself - to seek “It,” at least publicly, is not very “It” - but by her chroniclers: magazine writers, newspaper columnists, photographers. “People never know how to describe me - what I am,” Sally Randall, a Palladium doorgirl and post-Brill ’80s “It” girl, told this magazine in 1985. It’s more “It” to have either two jobs or no jobs a bit of mystery is very “It,” and if no one can quite figure out what you do, so much the better. So does a sense of style, especially one unto yourself. “It” girls are primarily young - not exclusively you could make a decent case for Iris Apfel’s having become an octogenarian “It” girl in the mid-aughts - but going out voraciously is a prime determinant of “It,” and a youthful energy helps. There, in a koan and a credo, is as good a working definition of “It” as we are likely to encounter.Īt the risk of saying more and understanding less, let’s add a few details. And they think obviously you’re the one who made the party because all of a sudden, when you leave, the party’s down.”Īll of a sudden, when you leave, the party’s down.

“And then,” Brill said, “the party crashes. The question is not always when to come but when to leave - and that time is once you’ve said “hello” to everyone.

The best time to show up is the peak of the party. I go everywhere.” And then Brill laid out, in essence, the rules of engagement: You go out every night. I’m a downtown, uptown, midtown cheerleader. “I think what it means is that I’m a cheerleader. “As a matter of fact, I met Mayor Koch,” Brill answered gamely before venturing an explanation of her title. “How do you get to be? Is this an elected position, you were appointed by the mayor, or what happens?” “Uh, Dianne, tell me about the Queen of the Night,” he said. New York mints these women: famous for being out, famous for being young, famous for being fun, famous for being famous.

Letterman acknowledged that Brill was “known in New York as ‘Queen of the Night’” - what had been called, and would be called again, many times, an “It” girl.

I Kissed a Girl by Jennet Alexander