A waif (from the Old French guaif, 'stray beast') [1] is a person removed, by hardship, loss or other helpless circumstance, from their original surroundings. The most common usage of the word is to designate a homeless, forsaken or orphaned child, or someone whose appearance is evocative of the same.
As such, the term is similar to a ragamuffin or street urchin, although the main distinction is volitional: a runaway youth might live on the streets, but would not properly be called a waif as the departure from one's home was an exercise of free will. Likewise, a person fleeing their home for purposes of safety (as in response to political oppression or natural disaster), is typically considered not a waif but a refugee.
Orphaned children, left to fend for themselves, are common as literary protagonists, especially in children's and fantasy literature. [2] The characters Catherine in Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights and Jo, the crossing sweeper in Charles Dickens' 1852 novel Bleak House are waifs. Dickens, it may be noted, has been called "the Master of Waif Literature."[ citation needed ] Bret Harte's 1890 novel A Waif of the Plains, set against the backdrop of the Oregon Trail in the 1850s, is another example. The children in A Series of Unfortunate Events are usually waifs, in between their unsuccessful stints in the care of various relatives. In modern adult fantasy writing, it could be argued that Kvothe of Patrick Rothfuss's The Kingkiller Chronicle ( The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear ) was a waif, and the stories include many flashback elements – as they are of Kvothe's life told by Kvothe – to the time when he indeed was a waif.
Literary waifs are frequently depicted with a frail appearance, although such physical aspects are not inherent in the term. Such evocations may reflect the endemic malnutrition of the street urchin.
Chicago's Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, a long-term residential home for troubled young men and women from the streets and abusive homes, has published The Waif's Messenger for more than 100 years.
A cartoon waif, an orphan boy, appeared in the 1936 Rainbow Parade cartoon A Waif's Welcome. [3]
In nautical terms, a waif is any survivor of a shipwreck compelled to make land upon a foreign shore. In this sense waif is roughly synonymous with castaway , although the latter term is generally associated with isolation; a waif (in the nautical sense) usually indicates a survivor of a marine disaster who has fallen into the care or custody of others.
"Some seven years ago...there appeared the remarkable saga of Manjiro, the shipwrecked Japanese waif who was rescued and brought to the United States by a Yankee whaling captain." [4]
Dating from the Middle Ages, when a woman was proscribed and subjected to penalties of outlawry, she was said to be “waived” and called a "waif". This waiving of the law was tantamount to outlawry since it removed all protection of the law. [5] Women in this status were outside of the "law", and as with male outlaws, others could kill them on sight as if they were wild animals.
Under British common law, items stolen by a thief and discarded during the thief's flight are "waifs." The monarch owns such waifs by royal prerogative. [6]
References to waifs in music are sometimes self-deprecating, as in the name of the Australian folk rock band name The Waifs, or Tracy Bonham's 1995 rock song "I'm Not a Waif".
Many other songs use the word "waif" to romanticize street children and runaways, as in the Marc Almond 1990 song "Waifs and Strays", or the Steely Dan jazz rock 2000 song "Janie Runaway", which describes the title character as being the "wonderwaif of Gramercy Park".
The psychedelic rock song "Black and White Sunshine" by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, from the 2017 album Who Built the Moon? , contains the lyrics "these are the glory days for the waifs and the strays".
Moreover in 2017, the Canadian band Alvvays recorded the indie pop song "Saved By A Waif", together with the whole album Antisocialites .
Frank Turner's 2019 folk song "Jinny Bingham's Ghost" contains the lyrics "Be sure to raise a toast. To the patron saint of the waifs and strays. To Jinny Bingham's ghost".
In botany, a "waif" is an unusual species found in the wild that is alien and either a) is unsuccessful at reproduction without human intervention, or b) only persists a few generations and disappears. Such a plant never gets naturalized in the wild. "Waif flora" also refers to plant species which occur on oceanic islands due to chance long-distance dispersion of seeds. [7]
In fashion and related popular culture, the term "waif" is commonly used to describe a very thin person, usually a woman.
"The waif look" was used in the 1960s to describe thin, large-eyed models such as Twiggy, [8] [9] and Edie Sedgwick. [10] The "gamine" look of the 1950s, associated with actresses such as Audrey Hepburn, Leslie Caron and Jean Seberg, was, to some extent, a precursor.
The term "waif" was seemingly ubiquitous in the 1990s, with heroin chic fashion and models such as Kate Moss and Jaime King on the runways and in advertisements. Actresses such as Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart, Winona Ryder, recently the British actress Keira Knightley and singer Celine Dion have all been pinned with the term.
Although the heroin chic look has gone out of fashion, [11] [12] [13] it still holds some popularity in Hollywood. For example, Wonderbra model Eva Herzigová was criticized over her waif-like figure. Daily Mirror columnist Sue Carroll wrote:
The supermodel, looking like a throwback to the 'heroin chic' era of waif-like undernourished models, was an X-ray of her old self, skeletally thin with greasy hair, blue lips, a cold sore and sunken eyes. [14]
Gia Marie Carangi was an American supermodel, considered by many to be the first supermodel. In 2023, Harpers Bazaar ranked her 15th among the greatest supermodels in the 1980s. She was featured on the cover of numerous magazines, including multiple editions of Vogue and Cosmopolitan, and appeared in advertising campaigns for fashion houses including Armani, Dior, Versace and Yves Saint Laurent.
A model is a person with a role either to display commercial products or to serve as an artist's model or to pose for photography.
A supermodel is a highly paid fashion model who has a worldwide reputation and background in haute couture and commercial modeling. The term became popular in the 1990s. Supermodels usually work for prominent fashion designers and clothing brands. They may have multimillion-dollar contracts, endorsements, and campaigns. Supermodels have branded themselves as household names and worldwide recognition is associated with their modeling careers. They have been on the covers of leading fashion magazines. Claudia Schiffer stated in 2007 that, "In order to become a supermodel one must be on all the covers all over the world at the same time so that people can recognise the girls."
Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewellery, and body modifications of the punk counterculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited to the dressed-down look of North American hardcore. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including glam rock, skinheads, greasers, and mods have influenced punk fashion. Punk fashion has likewise influenced the styles of these groups, as well as those of popular culture. Many punks use clothing as a way of making a statement.
Dame Lesley Lawson, widely known by the nickname Twiggy, is an English model, actress, and singer. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenage model during the swinging '60s in London.
Katherine Ann Moss is an English model. Arriving towards the end of the "supermodel era", Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend. Her collaborations with Calvin Klein brought her to fashion icon status. She is known for her waifish figure, and role in size zero fashion. Moss has had her own clothing range, has been involved in musical projects, and is also a contributing fashion editor for British Vogue. In 2012, she came second on the Forbes top-earning models list, with estimated earnings of $9.2 million in one year. The accolades she has received for modelling include the 2013 British Fashion Awards acknowledging her contribution to fashion over 25 years, while Time named her one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2007.
The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London denoted as its centre. It saw a flourishing in art, music and fashion, and was symbolised by the city's "pop and fashion exports", such as the Beatles, as the multimedia leaders of the British Invasion of musical acts; the mod and psychedelic subcultures; Mary Quant's miniskirt designs; popular fashion models such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton; the iconic status of popular shopping areas such as London's King's Road, Kensington and Carnaby Street; the political activism of the anti-nuclear movement; and the sexual liberation movement.
Kinderwhore is a fashion style most notably worn by some female grunge and alternative rock musicians in the US during the early to mid-1990s. The style is characterized through the combination of cute, feminine fashion items like babydoll and Peter Pan collared dresses, with more adult aspects like smudged red lipstick and dark eye makeup. It has its origins in the mid-1980s band Pagan Babies, which featured future Babes in Toyland vocalist/guitarist Kat Bjelland and future Hole vocalist/guitarist Courtney Love, who lived together and shared clothes. Following the band's disbandment, the two's subsequent bands achieved significant mainstream success and led to the fashion being popularised amongst the general public and being referenced by high fashion designers including Marc Jacobs.
Patricia Anne Boyd is an English model and photographer. She was one of the leading international models during the 1960s and, with Jean Shrimpton, epitomised the British female look of the era. Boyd married George Harrison in 1966, experiencing the height of the Beatles' popularity and sharing in their embrace of Indian spirituality. She divorced Harrison in 1977 and married mutual friend Eric Clapton in 1979; they divorced in 1989. Boyd inspired Harrison's songs "I Need You", "If I Needed Someone", "Something" and "For You Blue", and Clapton's songs "Layla", "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Wonderful Tonight".
Heroin chic is a style popularized in early-1990s fashion and characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes, emaciated features, androgyny and stringy hair—all traits associated with abuse of heroin or other drugs. American supermodel Gia Carangi is remembered for being the originator of the trend. Heroin chic was partly a reaction against the healthy and vibrant look of leading 1980s models such as Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson, and Claudia Schiffer. A 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times stated that the fashion industry had "a nihilistic vision of beauty" that was reflective of drug addiction.
August Rush is a 2007 American musical drama film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and produced by Richard Barton Lewis. The screenplay is by Nick Castle and James V. Hart, with a story by Paul Castro and Castle. It involves an 11-year-old musical prodigy living in an orphanage who runs away to New York City. He begins to unravel the mystery of who he is, while his mother is searching for him and his father is searching for her. The many sounds and rhythms he hears throughout his journey culminate in a major instrumental composition that concludes with his score, "August's Rhapsody".
Boho-chic is a style of fashion drawing on various bohemian and hippie influences, which, at its height in late 2005 was associated particularly with actress Sienna Miller, model Kate Moss in the United Kingdom and actress/businesswoman Mary-Kate Olsen in the United States. It has been seen since the early 1990s and, although appearing to wane from time to time, has repeatedly re-surfaced in varying guises. Many elements of boho-chic became popular in the late 1960s and some date back much further, being associated, for example, with pre-Raphaelite women of the mid-to-late 19th century.
The gamine is a popular archetype of a slim, often boyish, elegant young woman who is described as mischievous or teasing, popularized in film and fashion from the turn of the twentieth century through to the 1950s. The word gamine is a French word, the feminine form of gamin, originally meaning urchin, waif or playful, naughty child. It was used in English from about the mid-19th century, but in the 20th century, came to be applied in its more modern sense.
Steampunk fashion is a subgenre of the steampunk movement in science fiction. It is a mixture of the Victorian era's romantic view of science in literature and elements from the Industrial Revolution in Europe during the 1800s. Steampunk fashion consists of clothing, hairstyling, jewellery, body modification and make-up. More modern ideals of steampunk can include t-shirts with a variety of designs or the humble jeans being accessorised with belts and gun holsters.
Street style is fashion that is considered to have emerged not from studios, but from the population at large. Street fashion is generally associated with youth culture, and is most often seen in major urban centers. Magazines and newspapers commonly feature candid photographs of individuals wearing urban, stylish clothing. Mainstream fashion often appropriates street fashion trends as influences. Most major youth subcultures have had an associated street fashion. Street style is different all around the globe.
Davide Sorrenti was an Italian-American photographer, born into the prominent fashion photography Sorrenti family. He is best remembered for his involvement in the rise and fall of the Heroin chic fashion trend of the 1990s.
"Hell of a Life" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010). The song was produced by West, Mike Caren, Ernest Wilson and Mike Dean. The song features a number of samples and contains backing vocals by Teyana Taylor, signed to West's G.O.O.D. Music label. The song features a production style with influence from rock and heavy metal music, and is notably bombastic and aggressive in nature. The song expresses a narrative about West marrying a pornographic film actress and the traumatic events that follow. It employs highly sexual, nightmarish imagery, and was inspired by West's relationship with model Amber Rose among other real-life events.
Patricia (Pat) McDonagh was a British fashion designer who became an important figure in Canadian fashion. She promoted the then-unknown model Twiggy and she designed costumes for The Beatles. McDonagh also designed costumes for Diana Rigg, as Emma Peel, in The Avengers.
The Adventures of Sanmao the Waif (三毛流浪记) is a 1949 Chinese film released by Kunlun Film Company, directed by Zhao Ming and Yan Gong. The 1949 film is based on the Sanmao comic, created by Zhang Leping in 1935 and features the well-known Chinese cultural symbol of child poverty, Sanmao, a homeless orphan boy. The film, which stars Wang Longji, follows Sanmao through his adventures surviving and meeting new people on the streets of Shanghai. The film notably works to counterbalance the tragic story of Sanmao with humor and comedy. Sanmao's visual image of a small boy with a big head and three hairs is well-known amongst Chinese people both old and young.
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