"Beach chic" was the title of an article in 2006 by the Times fashion editor Lisa Armstrong about shopping for accessories to accompany a bikini.
[1] These included a "cover-up" (e.g. a kaftan), flat sandals, a hat, a fake tan and - with the comforting footnote, "No, you will not look like a WAG [wife or girlfriend of a footballer]" - denture cleaner to whiten finger-nails.
In 2007, the clothing retailer Marks & Spencer suggested that some of the elements of chic casual were skinny jeans, "longline, clingy jerseys", "statement" bags and chunky jewellery, slouchy sweaters and hoodies with comfortable flats.
[16] Heroin chic was a look popularized in mid-1990s fashion and characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes and angular bone structure.
A 1996 article in The Los Angeles Times opened that the fashion industry had "a nihilistic vision of beauty" that was reflective of drug addiction, while U.S. News & World Report called the movement a "cynical trend".
Lady Carlisle cited a friend's description of the term: "it's farmers' markets, four-wheel drive cars, labradors, Harris Tweed, Shaker furniture, Emma Bridgewater [tableware] ...".
Applied to the sort of "everyday" sense of style that might be spotted in any metropolitan or provincial setting; most likely to be associated with prevailing "shop window" fashions.
In 2004 the Observer wrote of the singer Dido that "she drifts on stage dressed in high-street chic: faded denim and a tracksuit top, which she slips off to reveal a pink camisole vest".
It is composed of sweatpants or tracksuits, baseball caps and running shoes, commonly in bright colors like neon pink or yellow.
Occasionally applied retrospectively[25] to aspects of the musical and cultural boom generated by the rock group, the Beatles, and other artists such as Gerry & The Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas in 1962-4 (the "Mersey Sound").
[29] The term bon chic bon genre or BCBG ["good style, good class"] was applied in the early 1980s to the French equivalent of British "Sloane Rangers", their typical "uniform" including a mackintosh, ballet shoes, trousers, a cashmere sweater, and accessories such as a "Birkin bag" and a Cartier Tank Française wrist-watch.
[30] To a large extent, it refers to upper-class, or upper-middle-class, young men and women who are well-bred, or appear so, with good bones, slim bodies, and a sophisticated, but restrained and elegant, sense of style.
"Porn chic" was first applied to films such as Deep Throat (1972) and Emmanuelle (1974) which were commercially successful and thus tended to bring "soft" pornography into the mainstream.