Tara and Tamara sing for their supper: PETER YORK ON ADS

No 220: KFC

IT'S HARD being an It Girl - you're always working. Working the room, the photographers; working at remembering your client's name, and, more important, his product's name. You have to say it loud and often. An It Girl's a walking product-placement site, a posh sandwich-board with an agent, a PR and a booking schedule.

Tara and Tamara, the best-known Its, have broken into commercials, debuting with KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken, before they de-fatted the name). This means they've had to endure hours of gruelling self-parody lessons. The initial scene's set on what looks like the Z-list party circuit - a thinly populated room, flat panes of colour and tinkly cocktail piano music. You sense that the party pix will appear in Central London free magazines.

The girls clatter down a white staircase, Tamara in white palazzo pants and top with midriff display, Tara in a silver knit dress, both with indoor sunspex. They make for an American-actor type and vamp him about his latest film - hot and spicy, passionate and craving - and ask for a part in it (Tara asks in an Australian accent).

This is Tara's only bit of work. Tamara does about five times as much business, smouldering and thrusting herself forward in a Fifties-starlet kind of way. Anyway, the "film" is a KFC commercial, the girls end up behind the counter in KFC caps, and Tamara tells us "There's been a horrible mistake," mugging away while TP-T looks more miserable than ever. Does the KFC target market know who they are? Do they care?

My understanding is that neither Miss Beckwith nor Miss Palmer-Tomkinson is an Equity member.