Our current girl crush Kate Phelan, Creative Director Topshop. Shop Topshp Now 
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SARAH NICOLE PRICKETT UPDATES ON THE ‘GIRL CRUSH’
People talked a lot about girlcrushes in 2011, and they’re still talking about them in 2012. Thessaly LaForce made the definitive zine, Girl Crush (http://girlcrushzine.tumblr.com/); she also wrote on the topic for W. Just before the W article came out, I edited this essay (http://www.torontostandard.com/culture-design/a-better-world-for-women-one-girlcrush-at-a-time/) for the Toronto Standard (one of my day jobs) on girlcrushes as a good, even feminist thing. Then, in response to the Toronto Standard essay, a Maisonneuve editor named Madeline wrote a wicked-smart smackdown (http://maisonneuve.org/blog/2011/11/14/true-why-girl-crush-gets-us-nowhere/). It backfired, though. I immediately developed a girlcrush on her.
Concessions: I would rather call it a “womancrush,” and I agree that if we’re only crushing on heteronormative media darlings, we’re hardly helping the female cause. Then again, crushes aren’t meant to help anything; crushes can’t be helped themselves. That’s the whole thing of a crush. And that’s why I won’t apologize for, like, all my adult life-long girlcrushes being these delicate/raw brunettes who don’t like to brush their hair. I have a type, alright? That or I’m just in love with idealized versions of myself (probably).
Charlotte Gainsbourg. Sooooo typique, non? Charlotte Gainsbourg is every fashion girl’s girlcrush for a reason: she wears Balenciaga like it’s The Gap and smokes like it’s good for you. More importantly, at least to me, how wounded and perfect was she in Melancholia? And how terrifying was she in Antichrist? If I’m going to be in love with someone, she has to make me a little bit scared.
Sally Singer. Before Sally Singer was the smart, thoughtful, bike-riding, everywhere-beloved editor-in-chief of T, the New York Times style mag, she worked at Vogue. Before she worked at Vogue, she worked for the London Book Review. That’s the cool part. She also worked for a book publisher, where she rejected Joseph O’Neill’s second novel. Then married him. In short: Sally Singer is better than you, but she seems so nice about it. (Although, true story: I have been ten feet away from Singer, and on another occasion, ten feet away from Wintour. I was only nervous near Singer. Loooooove.)
Sofia Coppola. I like her so much I even liked Marie Antoinette. Ask me how many times I’ve seen The Virgin Suicides. Trick question! I can’t count that high.
Lydia Davis. It is a Great American Tragedy that the so-called “writers” of the TV show Revenge named a socialite character Lydia Davis. Would the TV Lydia Davis, played by Amber Valetta, ever muster the emotional acuity required to read the real Lydia Davis, possibly the best short story-ist alive? A writer who can write about cows (cows) and make you feel transformed? A translator who made Madame Bovary the greatest book you never really read? Lydia Davis, trust me, has even more answers than I have questions. And if you don’t trust me, fine: go read her most recent story for free on this here internet (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9013382/Exclusive-Lydia-Davis-story-The-Landing.html).
Patti Smith. A god among women. Also, a god among men.
-Sarah Nicole Prickett is a writer living in Toronto; and our girl crush.