Dot Wordsworth

The summer of Brat

[Getty Images] 
issue 03 August 2024

The singer Charli XCX (or ‘Ninety Ten’ as my husband insists on pronouncing it) has endorsed Kamala Harris, in a way. ‘Kamala is brat,’ she tweeted. Since the slippery meaning of brat includes elements of dirtiness, drunkenness and hedonism, it might not define all that Americans want in a president.

Not that Charli is American. She was born in Cambridge (England, not Massachusetts), given the names Charlotte Emma and went to a private school in Bishop’s Stortford. Her album brat came out in June, with a lime-green cover and the name in fuzzy type.

She has characterised brat as ‘trashy… a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra’. I know that a couple of years ago Bic ran ads using figures such as Snoop Dogg (who has marketed legal cannabis products). I don’t know what else Bic lighters are useful for, apart from those cigs.

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