Are you a wifey, bish or boo? The new celebrity girl gangs

While Rita has ‘wifed’ Cara, Katy is back ‘boo-ing’ Rihanna. The cool crowd may have a new lexicon for their greatest girl chum but they’re still BFFs for ever, says Phoebe Luckhurst

Girls have always had their gangs. From the Pink Ladies to the Spice Girls, ladettes to the Plastics, sisters have been sticking together since we realised we were better company than the boys. In the age of Twitter and Instagram, girl gangs acquire the status of brands. The most powerful girl gang out there? The wifey.

The queen bees of wifeydom are Cara Delevingne and Rita Ora. Since Ora coined the phrase in an interview in March, declaring, “We call each other wifey” about her relationship with the supermodel the pair have been the poster girls for a very modern marriage: a relationship that’s part power alliance, part party pals and part moral support for the craziness of their respective lifestyles. Other wifeys include Rihanna and her best friend Melissa Forde, who have been friends since they were growing up in Barbados. Melissa’s loyalty has earned her pole position in the circus that is Rihanna’s entourage.

Rihanna’s a bigamist: she and BFF Katy Perry have recently made up after a tiff about Rihanna’s continued relationship with Chris Brown (men can’t drive a permanent wedge between wifeys). Pixie Geldof and Alexa Chung have a long-distance marriage — Alexa is based in New York — but keep the fire alive with affectionate tweets and Instapics. Samantha Barks has described London girl Daisy Lowe as her “soulmate”, echoing Rita’s words on Cara: “You know what a wifey means? It’s like your other half. Like when you get married, like, that’s your wife!”

The wifey borrows a lot from its girl gang predecessors: slick style from the Pink Ladies, girl power from the Spice Girls, hard partying from the ladettes and exclusivity from those Mean Girls. And it’s no ordinary friendship. Don’t mistake the absence of a ceremony for a fickleness of heart. Being a wifey is a serious commitment: instead of rings, they get tattooed together (like Rita and Cara on a recent trip to NYC), don a uniform (Ri-Ri and Melissa favoured floral trouser suits while in London for Rihanna’s Diamonds tour) or go to war for each other — because being a wifey means it’s you two against the world. When reports surfaced that Rita and Cara had fallen out, the pair took to Twitter to slam the rumours and reassert their love. It makes a commitment ceremony look like a whim.

“Having a close friend can boost self-esteem: girls and women can feel safer and enjoy a greater sense of self-worth when facing up to the challenges of the world, particularly if this friendship is validating and empowering,” says Dr Michael Sinclair, clinical director at the City Psychology Group in Harley Street. “Girls can form very close and strong friendships in their teens and these bonds often continue into adulthood.”

But wifeys aren’t the only girl tribe. The new girl gang on the block is the “bish”; the hashtag returns almost a million results on Instagram. According to urban dictionary, it’s “short for bitch but used in a playful sort of way. Not intended to be hurtful and often used between friends”. Wifeys are power couples; bishes are part of a wider network — you’ll bump into them on a night out, but wouldn’t share a late-night McDonald’s with them (like Cara and Rita).

Kate Moss is too cool for social networking but she’d undoubtedly have a network of bishes, presided over by the grand puppet-master Fran Cutler. Cara posted a shout out to her “shorties” — Georgia Jagger, Charlotte Free and Sky Ferreira — on Instagram: a snap of the model girl gang, so named because the members lack the Amazonian height of catwalk counterparts, strutting for Marc Jacobs at New York Fashion Week.

Then there are “boos”, which now flexibly designates boyfriend or girlfriend. Katy is Rihanna’s “boo”.

Wifey, bish or boo: each term is a little irreverent, slightly cheeky and very knowing. Being in a new girl gang means creating a little bubble of fun— a partner-in-crime you can always rely on to hit the town. Still calling your girl mates “babe”? Time to upgrade to a wifey.

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