Wavy the Creator Star (2024)
The first It-Girl of Western history came from a poor family. But Evelyn Nesbit, born in the 1880s, came along at the exact right time to become the star of America’s Gilded Age and the first ever supermodel. Here’s how that happened:
Luckily, Evelyn was pretty. As an adolescent girl, she sat for local painters and artists in her home state of Pennsylvania, and when she was fourteen, her mother moved the family to New York City in search of greater financial stability. Needless to say, it went well: Evelyn was able to sit for more artists there, became a popular subject in the city’s visual art scene, and in addition started acting and singing in Broadway shows. This, paired with the rise of fashion photography, mass-printed magazines, an affair with famous architect Stanford White (32 years her senior) and a marriage to millionaire railroad-heir Harry K. Thaw (who when courting her anonymously gifted her a piano), created Evelyn's rather unprecedented, comet-like rise to fame: She was on the cover of the first editions of fashion magazines like Vanity Fair, the face of Coca-Cola ads, and as the inspiration for Charles Dana Gibson’s The Eternal Question, she became one of the original Gibson Girls.
This is where you click “play” on Wavy the Creator’s “Star”, by the way: The most recent single of the Lagos-born-and-US-raised artist with its smooth, heavy bass and heady vocals is practically made for a supermodel-photography-shoot montage. Go on, have yourself a try.
Start the conversation
Become a paid member of The Rest to gain access to the comments section.