It Girl was originally slang for a beautiful, stylish young woman who possessed sex appeal without flaunting her sexuality, when the phrase originated in British upper-class society around the turn of the 20th century. The expression reached global attention in 1927, with the popularity of the Paramount Studios film It, starring Clara Bow. == Early use == An early literary usage of ‘it’ in this sense may be traced to a 1904 short story by Rudyard Kipling: It isn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just ‘It’. Elinor Glyn, the notorious British novelist who wrote the book titled...