Look at Me, I’m an Icon

1. i·kon (ī’kŏn’)
   1. An image; a representation.
   2. A representation or picture of a sacred or sanctified Christian personage, traditionally used and venerated in the Eastern Church.
2. An important and enduring symbol
3. One who is the object of great attention and devotion; an idol

I have a huge problem with the word icon. With who can be one (anyone who ticks over fifteen minutes). With how suddenly one can become one. At what age one can wear the icon tag (apparently, right now, sixteen). It seems like whenever journalists are stuck for a word to describe the summation of paparazzi throngs, magazine covers and red carpet appearances, they drag out ‘icon’, dust it off and pop it in.

The second point of the above definition is what I want to focus on today, class, because it is that definition we most commonly subscribe to in the realm of popular culture (where icons are deities). ‘An important and enduring symbol.’ And to specify even further, because it was this context in which I most recently came across the word and felt my goat had been severely got, I am going to hone in on the most bandied about type of icon right now … the Style Icon.

Let me ask you this … who isn’t a Style Icon? Who hasn’t popped a hip, raised their chin and spiked a camera lens wearing something by a little known Japanese designer at some sort of social-pages covered event and been lauded as an emerging style icon?

I was doing my usual early morning trashy website trawl when I happened upon an article on Miley Cyrus. There she was standing awkwardly on the red carpet her teen limbs encased in a structured mini-dress, looking as she so often does, older than I do, and I am eight years older than she actually is. The dress was Herve Leger by Max Azria from the Autumn/Winter 09 collection (aka never been seen let alone worn by anyone who doesn’t wield box office clout along with her cheque book). It’s a great dress. A fabulous dress, one might say. It’s short, it’s sparkly, it’s potentially inappropriate for a sixteen year old at the premiere of a Hannah Montana movie, but it’s a great dress. Does it, however, warrant this next statement?

‘Despite her tender age, Miley is already turning into a fashion icon thanks to her love of designer couture.’

Wait a minute. Thanks to her love of designer couture? I daresay you mean thanks to her millions that mean she can point to a picture of a couture dress and five minutes later, own it.

The girl is sixteen. No one is an icon at sixteen, except maybe Shirley Temple because all her good years happened between the ages of four and six.

In the S lift-out of the Sun Herald this week, which routinely robs me of five minutes of my life I’ll never get back again, Kate Waterhouse writes in her freshly minted column, ‘Pip Edwards is a Sydney’s style icon (sic).’ Pip has been in the fashion industry for ten years, is the former partner of an Australian fashion designer and has just turned twenty-nine. Yep, an icon and she’s not even thirty. An icon without her influence even stretching beyond one city.

And just this evening, as I was doing my usual Sunday evening trashy website trawl, I noticed Perez Hilton referred to Beth Ditto as both a beauty and a style icon. Beth Ditto is cool. Bloody cool. For so many reasons. And she actively goes against what is expected of her by the industry she’s in, and she will be remembered for it by fans and peers alike. But she’s not an icon.

Whilst I’m at it …

• Lady Gaga, no, as cool as she is.
• Leighton Messer, no, it doesn’t count when you have access to the Gossip Girl wardrobe and all its perks.
• Blake Lively, no, ditto.
• Nicole Ritchie, no, it doesn’t count when you rise to style prominence on the back of someone else’s penchants for kaftans.
• Victoria Beckham, no, as much as you increasingly win me over with your unapologetic consistency and surprising British wit.
• Lindsay Lohan, Camilla Belle, Mischa Barton, Daisy Lowe, any of the Geldofs, no. And on that note, let it be said, just because your parents are iconic, or on their way to being so, doesn’t automatically make you the same. Kimberly Stewart and a large proportion of cool London/Los Angeles, I’m looking at you.
• Olsen Twins, bless their tiny souls, no.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all stylish people. They wear wonderful clothes, they make surprising choices, they keep things fresh (largely, with the exception perhaps of the Gossip Girls, who don’t so much keep things fresh as peddle what’s out there already) but these people are not icons. Yet. They may have an innate sense of style, a fantastic wardrobe, a passion for fashion and a dedication to the aesthetics, but they are not icons.

Although several of the aforementioned may not fall into this category, I have to get this off my chest; so many of these figures painted with the enthusiastic icon brush are women (and men) who have clothes sent to them by the designers. They then pay someone to sift through it all and tell them what will and won’t work on their body type. That same person then accessorises their outfit – shoes, jewellery, bags – and sends them on their airbrushed way. Sure, some steps may be inserted or deleted from the process depending on the public figure you’re talking about, but for the most part, these so called style icons are very wealthy and very well connected.

Style icons don’t just wear a string of pretty dresses, sit front row for a show during Fashion Week and go on the record as ‘loving fashion.’ Style icons change the status quo. They set a trend and when everyone else starts following it, move on to something else. Katherine Hepburn wore pants at a time women didn’t. She made something traditionally masculine, incredibly stylish and feminine. More importantly, she made it acceptable and women’s fashion has never looked back. Audrey Hepburn, with the help of Givenchy, pioneered simple elegance and nailed perhaps the most enduring trend of them all, the Little Black Dress. Jackie Onassis revolutionised the way a woman in the most critical of spotlights, the political spotlight, was expected to dress.

These women pioneered styles, looks and trends that have endured for decades. They made waves at the time and without them, the concept of style and the evolution of fashion wouldn’t have been the same. That is an icon.

I raised this with a friend of mine over sushi the other day and she seemingly felt as emphatic about the over-use of the I word as I do. We decided that it was possible to go so far as to suggest for one to be an Icon, they really should be dead. Or at least old. We agreed even those most famous for their style right now cannot be icons … yet. Kate Moss – sure she’s on track, but the girl needs to ring in her eightieth birthday and still have us all rail thin in skinny jeans and blazers before she can truly be called an icon. Ditto SJP, Agyness Deyn, Diane Kruger and anyone else of that ilk.

Stylistas and their fashionista sisters, like books or films that have reached iconic status, must somehow change the status quo for their generation, and indeed for the generations that will succeed them. They must take what is normal, what is accepted, and turn it on its head, or at the very least question it.

Or, they must come to typify their age. Symbolize their era with their consistent, personal style that has been emulated for decades to come – that has endured. Because that’s what icons do, they endure. They are remembered for what they do, and for being the only one to do what they did like they did it.

Do you think Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel became a style icon because she wore a series of pretty couture frocks she was paying someone handsomely to choose for her? Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco because she ‘liked couture’, Twiggy because she sat in a prominent position at Fashion Week and hightailed what she saw to the red carpet? All these women took what was considered normal by the era from which they sprung, and either changed it or embodied it like no other.

There are other words we overuse, throw at people we probably shouldn’t, because they make for snappy headlines and good sales. Legend is a big one. Hero. And the word which has ceased to mean anything at all, celebrity.

In 2004 Lauren Bacall was giving an interview with a journalist about her film Birth, in which she starred with the woman who perhaps more frequently than any of her peers receives the icon tag, Nicole Kidman. The journalist went to use the word ‘legend’ in reference to Nic, and Lauren cut them off.  Quite rightly, she said, “She’s not a legend, she’s a beginner. What is this ‘legend’? She can’t be a legend at whatever age she is. She can’t be a legend, you have to be older.”

Amen Lauren.

These actors, musicians, artists, writers, whoever else we tag with the labels legend or icon or both, they are all talented. For the most part. At best, they’re brilliant at what they do, at worst they have no shame and are very marketable. But by virtue of the fact they are still here, still working and are yet to pass the most difficult test of all – the test of time – they cannot be something that requires actually endurance beyond their lifetime.

In years to come, many of the names I’ve bandied about over the past few hundred words, may very well go down in pop culture history as icons. Many of them are indeed laying the icon groundwork. Pioneering a personal style; starting, perpetuating then moving on from trends; influencing designers, consumers and pop culture and becoming synonymous with an image, a representation.

But.

An icon isn’t in the state of becoming. An icon has become, long, long ago. They are, and always will be, an important and enduring symbol. Just ask the dictionary.

Cover image: Katherine Hepburn by Madeline Tosh on Flickr & Miley Cyrus by nsp_p3 on Flickr (same image used again).

Beth Ditto on the cover of Love Magazine courtesy of Y100 on Flickr

Lady GaGa by Benyupp on Flickr

Audrey Hepburn courtesy of Katarina W on Flickr

Sarah Jessica Parker by Christopher Peterson on Flickr

Twiggy courtesy of Santel on Flickr

Agyness Deyn montage courtesy of Colorinchi on Flickr