On the history of the word 'Chic'

This camel, as seen on New Zealand's Next Top Model is definitely chic.

Two years ago, says Heather Wagner, copy director at Elle, "we even had a meeting about it. It was on every other page. It was back when Carol Smith was our publisher; she actually noticed it and said there's a moratorium on the word 'chic.'" Some arbiters are recommending restraint. "I don't throw that word around lightly," Tommy Ton tells me. And what the repercussions of constant usage are remains unclear. "Is this going to be a dated word?" Emily Weiss wonders when I phone her to ask about for-lack-of-a-better-word chic. "Is this going to be like 'groovy'?"

Style.com writer Matthew Schneier has written an interesting piece about the use of the word chic, and how it came to be fashion. For all my fellow fashion and linguistics geeks out there.