Boho-chic
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Boho-chic is a style of
Luxe grunge (also known as luxe bohemian) may be a synonym;
Lexicography
"Boho"
"BoHo" is a shortened form of bohemian, self descriptive of the style.
Virginia Nicholson (granddaughter of
In
"Chic"
"Chic" was borrowed from French in the late 19th century and has come to mean stylish or elegant.
Elements
The boho look, which owed much to the hippie styles that developed in the middle to late 1960s, became especially popular after Sienna Miller's appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in 2004,[9] although some of its features were apparent from photographs of her taken in October 2003[10] and of others living in or around the postal district of W10 (North Kensington), an area of London associated with bohemian culture since the mid-1950s.
By the spring of 2005, boho was almost ubiquitous in parts of London and was invading stores in almost every British high street.
Footless
Trends
Sienna Miller in the mid 2000s
Sienna Miller's relationship with – and, for a time,
It was a strange social experiment, to be responsible for all that. It made me self-conscious, which, inherently, I'm not. People would say, "I'm sick of boho", and now I stand up and say, "But I liked those clothes – it's not my fault that they were copied, you wore them and now you're sick of them. Also, I did not start the trend."[20]
2007–08: folk, "diluted", and Balearic boho
In the autumn of 2006, The Times' style director Tina Gaudoin observed that "when the women's wear buyer at M[arks] & S[pencer] is quoted saying 'boho is over', you know the trend is well and truly six foot under."
You may baulk at the very word, but this summer's style has definite nuances of boho – albeit in a very diluted form. Sienna Miller's gipsy skirt brigade somehow didn't finish this feminine trend off for good, and some of the less contrived ingredients – embroidery, leather, gentle frills – are back
Noting that "this time it's much more about a deconstructed, looser version of English Country Garden style", London Lite recalled the early 1970s designs of
The Tatler wrote of Jagger – "the original 'Boho'" – that she "lives, breathes and creates a certain kind of contemporary "bohemian" chic", although Jagger herself claimed to be "a little wary of the word "bohemian"", describing her approach as "daring to mix ... combining things that are unexpected".
she had a magazine on the table with Jade Jagger wearing the most beautiful bright dress I had ever seen. I remember thinking it was my dream dress. I now feel that way about almost every dress of Matthew's I have worn".[30]
In 2011 "destination dressing" for Ibiza was still deemed to "embrace boho chic with a hint of understated glamour"[31]
When, in August 2007, Sienna and Savannah Miller launched their own fashion label, Twenty8Twelve (so-called after Sienna's birthday, 28 December), one commentator referred to Sienna's "own brand of Notting Hillbilly chic" (a reference to London W10) and remarked that, "with [her] love of all things boho, it's unsurprising to see a thread of louche, folksy styling running through the line".[32] However, the same writer observed wryly that "quite how many French peasants hoed fields in printed smocks is undocumented" and felt that one particular shirt-dress was "a little too reminiscent of Nancy in Oliver Twist".[32] The following year, the Sunday Times, noting that one in two Americans and one in five Britons were reportedly sporting tattoos, observed that Miller "complete[d] her luxe-layabout look with a cluster of stars on her silken shoulder";[33] that she had also a tattoo of a bluebird, the subject of both a poem by Charles Bukowski and a drawing by Edie Sedgwick; and that Kate Moss displayed "two swallows diving into her buttock crack".
Recession of 2008–10: broderie, exotic lingerie, 70s glam/beatnik
In 2008 fashion consultant Gok Wan cited a broderie anglaise top worn by Nadine Coyle of the group Girls Aloud as evidence that "the folk/boho look is so hot for summer",[34] while Marks & Spencer employed the headline "Bohemian Rhapsody" to summarise its summer range, which owed much to the colours and patterns of the early 1970s.[35] At the beginning of June that year fashion writer Carrie Gorman announced that "this week, shopping is about going bright and bold with a boho feel", citing, among other trends, multi-coloured tank tops ("or dress, according to your height") by Harlow, said to be the favorite label of American actress Rachel Bilson.[36] Bilson has cited Kate Moss and actress Diane Keaton as among her stylistic influences;[37] striped multi-colored panties with brodierie edging were a feature of her photographic shoot for Stuff magazine in 2004.[38]
Another, rather distinctive, exponent of the "
In the same year, a journalist wrote of Deschanel:... she's the antistarlet ... She tiptoes in looking like a graceful version of boho-chic 29-year-olds found everywhere from Brooklyn to Silver Lake, with an Obama [Democratic Presidential candidate] button on her vintage coat and [t]he New Yorker rolled up in her pocket...[40]
Deschanel's "kooky" style
Although boho once again appeared to be on the wane by 2009, elements of it were clearly in evidence in collections for spring and summer 2010. Fashion Union advertised "spring's new bohemian trend in full bloom" and "hippie chic tops on loveworn denims",
In 2010 the Sunday Times anticipated that the medieval
By the late autumn of 2010 The Times noted the desirability in the UK of
Children's fashion
Many parents have also embraced the Boho Chic trends and elements to create and purchase apparel for their children. This particular trend is inspired by the casual American fashion of the 1960s, but as the counterculture included the influences of earlier time periods in its eclectic embrace of style and personal values, it often includes hints of the Victorian, a nod to the fabrics and details of the 1940s, or a homage to the intellectuals of the 1950s.[51]
Influence and exponents
Kate Moss and Sienna Miller
Many, including actress Lindsay Lohan,[52] attributed the boho look to supermodel Kate Moss (who in 1997 had been associated, through an advertising campaign for Calvin Klein, with the so-called "heroin chic" or "waif" look). In fact the Australian journalist Laura Demasi used the term "boho-chic" as early as October 2002 with reference to Moss and Jade Jagger. In April 2004, the British-born fashion writer Plum Sykes was quoted as saying of a lynx mini-top, "Very cool, very bohemian, very Kate Moss–y";[53] and in 2006 Times fashion editor Lisa Armstrong described a plaited leather belt of the previous year as a "Boho 'Kate' belt".[54] Nevertheless, it was the apparently unaffected ease with which Sienna Miller (dubbed by some as the "new Kate Moss"[55]) carried off the look that brought it into the mainstream: even in advertisements for Chloé early in 2005 Miller was shown as if casually shopping, while she told Vogue that she had a laid-back approach to grooming, including cutting her own hair.[17]
Established in 1993, the UK clothing label 'OVERIDER' described as 'the brand of a free spirit' and favoured for its understated, effortless, bohemian style exemplifies the 2014 Boho-chic trend.
In 2008 the Sunday Times applied the term "real chic" to a group of "the chicest celebrities", including Miller and actresses
A beguillingly shambolic Sienna is seen sobbing on the beach busting a wartime make-do-and-mend look: boiled-wool cardie over flowery tea dress over folded-down wellies over long woolly socks.[58]
One reviewer observed of Miller's role that "Caitlin is meant to be a boho girl and free spirit, which is a posh way of saying she's a drunk who is promiscuous".[59]
Rachel Zoe
American celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe has been credited as helping to popularise boho style in the 2000s.[60][61] Writing in Guardian, Lauren Cochrane wrote, that Zoe "was one of the first stylists to put the vintage "look" on the red carpet."[61] A retrospective piece published in Grazia in 2000 said of Zoe: "Styling her clients not just for the red carpet but for pap-bait Starbucks runs, she was the architect of the boho-meets-rock chic look that came to define a new breed of Hollywood ‘it’-girls who were as adept at setting trends as they were at causing trouble: Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan, Mischa Barton exemplified the moment (pre their The Row paring-down, the Olsens - not Zoe clients - were working a similar look)."[62] The look championed by Zoe was exemplified by oversized accessories such as sunglasses[63] and handbags paired with loose-fitting tops and dresses.[62]
Appeal and impact
The cross-generational appeal of boho influenced, among other things, the ranges that brought about a revival in the fortunes of
Exemplars
Notwithstanding an early tendency to be associated with photographic spreads for "lads' magazines") Rachel Stevens[66] were both held up in the mid-noughties as exemplars of boho. So, a few years later, were Diana Vickers and another teenaged singer, Pixie Lott.
In 2007 London Lite contrasted the "gay glamour" of American actress Goldie Hawn with the "more relaxed, boho look" of her daughter, actress Kate Hudson, noting that "keeping the colours neutral, [Hudson]'s careful not to break any style rules, with classy knitwear and good-quality accessories".[67]
Another well-judged exponent of boho, in the second series of ITV's Murder in Suburbia (2005), was Detective Sergeant Emma Scribbins, the character played by Lisa Faulkner.
Fast fashion
The impact of boho illustrated certain broader trends in what Shane Watson referred to as "the way we dress now":[68] that fashion was increasingly being dictated, not by the main houses, but what Watson called "the triple-F crowd" (the F referring to the f's in "famous and fashion-forward"), of which Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan and Sienna Miller were exemplars. Once they had spotted new fashions, young women were not prepared to wait a season for them to become available and, consequently, the familiar boundaries between summer wear and that for autumn and winter were becoming blurred. As Jane Shepherdson, brand director of the clothing chain Topshop, put it, "when Sienna wore that gilet, we had to pull them forward fast ... She was doing boho in the autumn, and we were expecting it to be a trend for the following spring. Girls see it and they want it immediately".[68]
The practice of meeting such demand, pioneered by the Spanish firm
Boho-rock and gothic
By Midsummer 2006, the Sunday Times had discerned a trend that fused aspects of boho-chic with "heavy metal attitude": "It's about wearing a studded leather jacket with a flimsy chiffon number, stomping about town in biker boots ... and wearing anything with a skull on it".[71] The newspaper referred to this style, which had been a feature of collections for Autumn 2006 by Christian Dior and John Galliano, as "boho-rock" and noted that both Sienna Miller and Kate Moss had adopted it. "Gothic rock"[72] had similar connotations. A look described by the Sunday Times in Autumn 2006 as "modern goth" was a more stylised version, exuding a "bondage vibe" and contrasting "soft, light fabrics ... with the harsh sleekness of patent [leather]".[73]
The gothic look was in vogue again in the autumn of 2007, a sleeker "dark Victorian style" being associated with, among others, Sienna Miller, twin actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (through their clothing label, The Row), the Australian model Gemma Ward[74] and the rising Ukrainian singer Mika Newton (the latter notably in photographs associated with her début album of 2005, Anomaliya).
Pre-Raphaelites
Florence Welch
"In 2009 the rise of British singer
Reflecting on Welch's broader influence, one rock journalist noted in 2010 that "even
Karen Elson
Other redheads whose personal style combined elegance with boho and gothic features were English model
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge
In 2011 some detected a pre-Raphaelite line to the
Terminology
In advance of Glastonbury 2004, the Sunday Times coined the term "festival chic", for a style with some similarities to boho.[88] It subsequently labelled a photographic spread of Sienna Miller, Lauren Bailey, Erin O'Connor and other muses of Matthew Williamson as "boho babes",[89] advised its readers to "think art-school chic" by adopting layers of clashing colours[19] and, in 2006, noted that "last year's boho babe" had become "this year's boho-rock chick".[90]
Almost an extension of "festival chic", the Telegraph coined the term "foho" to describe the evolution of the boho style in the summer of 2007.[91] According to the newspaper, this look, which took its influence from both boho style and "the heavy influence of folk culture", had been seen on the likes of Sienna Miller and Kate Moss.
The London Evening Standard referred to "hippie chic" (a term used in the 1990s with reference to the velvet kaftans created by Tom Ford for the Italian house of Gucci) in a feature about "gypsy queens",[92] while the Sunday Times, reflecting on what "the fashion world called ... boho chic", referred to Sienna Miller's having created "the retro hippie look that swept Britain's high streets".[93] In 2007 London Lite hailed the return of "hippy, hippy chic"[94] and, as noted, Fashion Union marketed "hippie chic" tops in 2010.
"Boho-by-default" was an unflattering description used by Lisa Armstrong to describe the style of women ("gargoyles" as opposed to "summer goddesses") who, for summer wear, "drag the same greying, crumpled boho-by-default mess out of storage every year".[95]
Morocco and Talitha Getty
In 2006, the Sunday Times described the
Related trends
Olsen twins and American bobo
In the United States, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, especially the former, were credited with a "homeless" look, first identified as such in Greenwich Village, New York in late 2004, that had many "boho" features (large sunglasses, flowing skirts, boots and loose jumpers). This was sometimes referred to as "ashcan chic".[98] The term, "bobo chic" (also known as "
Bobo chic was associated in particular with
Cocktail grunge and the catwalk
A "
French bobos and similar stylists
In the world of Parisian fashion, the term bobo (short for
The bobo style of dress has been described as "retro-hippie-
"When girls do the walk of shame ... I think they look best like that, slightly dishevelled." The Kate Moss look? "Yeah".[111]
Some of the teenaged rock bands, such as
The name "Bourgeois Boheme" was adopted in 2005 by a British company, founded by Alicia Lai, that marketed "ethnically sourced" fashion accessories and cosmetics and, by 2009, had moved into handmade shoes crafted from such materials as hemp and organic cotton.[116]
Bohemian roots
Although boho-chic in the early years of the 21st century represented a definite style, it was not a "movement." Nor was it noticeably associated with bohemianism as such. Jessica Brinton saw it as "the tagging and selling of the bohemian dream to the masses for £5.99".[117] Indeed, the Sunday Times thought it ironic that "fashionable girls wore ruffly floral skirts in the hope of looking bohemian, nomadic, spirited and non-bourgeois", whereas "gypsy girls themselves ... are sexy and delightful precisely because they do not give a hoot for fashion".[118] By contrast, in the first half of the 20th century, aspects of bohemian fashion were a reflection of the lifestyle itself.
In fact, most of the components of boho had, in one way or another, drifted in and out of fashion since the "Summer of Love" of 1967 when hippiedom and psychedelia were at their peak. As journalist Bob Stanley put it, "the late 1960s are never entirely out of fashion, they just need a fresh angle to make them de jour".[119]
References
- ^ See The Times, 2 November 2006
- ^ The It Lists, Sept 2006
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 24 September 2006
- ^ The Times, 2 November 2006
- ^ Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900–1939, 2002
- ^ A. N. Wilson (2005) After the Victorians
- ^ A Scandal in Bohemia, 1891
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 20 August 2006
- ^ Style, 26 December 2004
- ^ Glamour, April 2004
- ^ Closer, 10–16 September 2005
- ^ Vogue, December 2006
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 5 August 2007.
- ^ Sunday Times, 15 October 2006
- ^ London Lite, 18 July 2007
- ^ Harvey, Catriona (13 October 2015). "Cosmopolitan, the women's magazine for fashion, beauty, sex tips and celebrity news". Getlippy.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
- ^ a b Vogue, December 2004
- ^ Style, 16 May 2005
- ^ a b Style, 1 May 2005
- ^ a b Sunday Times Style, 5 August 2007
- ^ Hair, June 2007
- ^ Vogue, January 2007
- ^ Times Magazine, 23 September 2006
- ^ a b Sunday Times Style, 18 March 2007
- ^ a b Deborah Arthurs, London Lite, 14 May 2007
- ^ Iain Stewart, Ibiza & Formentera (Rough Guide Directions, 2nd ed., 2008)
- ^ Sandy Mitchell, The Tatler, November 2010. The particular context of Jagger's observations was her styling of a group of villas in Marrakech.
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 17 October 2010
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 16 January 2005
- ^ Sienna Miller, Sunday Times Style, 17 October 2010
- ^ Harriet Stewart, Sunday Times Style, 17 July 2011
- ^ a b Deborah Arthurs in London Lite, 3 September 2007
- ^ Alice Fordham in Sunday Times Style, 13 July 2008
- ^ Sky Mag, June 2008
- ^ Your M&S, May/June 2008. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the title of 1975 hit record by the British rock group Queen.
- ^ thelondonpaper, 1 June 2008
- ^ "Filmmaking Category". Future Movies. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
- ^ [1] Archived May 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Zooey Deschanel: BlackBook June–July Cover Girl - BlackBook". Blackbookmag.com. 22 May 2008. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
- ^ "Actress Zooey Deschanel is the antistarlet - Entertainment - Movies - TODAY.com". Today.com. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
- ^ For example, Radio Times, 23 March 2013
- ^ Notably a purple demi rhinestone bra by Victoria's Secret in series 2, episode 15 ("Cooler")
- ^ Rachel Felder in New York Times, 13 February 2013.
- ^ Fifty Shades of Grey, chapter 8
- ^ Metro, 7 November 2013; FHM, January 2014. In one photograph Vickers was holding a copy of Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries.
- ^ Fashion Union, The Fashionista's Pocket Guide to Miami, Spring 2010
- ^ Sunday Times Business, 21 March 2010. In early 2010 Monsoon planned to open a further 140 stores worldwide in the coming year.
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 13 June 2010
- ^ Lucy Ewing, Sunday Times Style, 17 October 2010
- ^ a b The Times, 27 November 2010
- ^ "Celebrate Beautifully Styled Boho-chic Children's Clothing Styles (part 1)". Magnolia Lake Clothing. 4 February 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
- ^ "Kate Moss has a new A-list fan". Vogue.co.uk. 11 August 2005. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
- ^ New York Magazine, 5 April 2004
- ^ Times Magazine, 20 May 2006
- ^ See, for example, London Evening Standard, 5 November 2004
- ^ Jessica Brinton, Sunday Times Style, 6 April 2008
- ^ Fleur Britten, Sunday Times Style, 28 April 2008
- ^ Britten, 28 April 2008
- ^ Cosmo Landesman, Sunday Times Culture, 22 June 2008
- ^ "Rachel Zoe Launches Talk Show That I Will Definitely Be Watching, Especially If Mandana Dayani Appears". Bustle. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ a b "Rachel Zoe: the stylist's boho look is back for spring/summer 2013". the Guardian. 19 November 2012. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ a b "Why This Mid-Noughties Style Moment Is Best Left In The Past". Grazia. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ "Rachel Zoe creates semi-autobiographical comedy". independent. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
- ^ Your M&S, Christmas 2005
- ^ a b Style, 18 June 2006
- ^ In 2001 and 2002, Stevens was voted the second "sexiest woman in the World" by FHM readers in the UK.
- ^ Camilla St John, London Lite, 14 May 2007
- ^ a b Style, 17 September 2006
- ^ Josephine Collins (Draper's Magazine), Today, BBC Radio 4, 6 October 2006
- ^ The Scotsman, 30 April 2003
- ^ Claudia Croft, Style, 2 July 2006
- ^ Evening Standard Magazine, 15 September 2006
- ^ Britt Bardo, Style, 24 September 2006
- ^ thelondonpaper, 24 October 2007
- ^ Tatler, June 2010
- ^ Quoted in The Times Saturday Review, 29 October 2011
- ^ See, for example, Francesca Ryan, Daily Telegraph, 4 June 2009; John Harris, The Guardian, 27 February 2010
- ^ Jeremy Maas, "The Pre-Raphaelites: A Personal View" in Leslie Parris (1984) The Pre-Raphaelite Papers; Fiona MacCarthy (2011) The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination. Welch denied in 2009 that she herself was a hippy – "I'm just an emotional creature": quoted in The Times Saturday Review, 29 October 2011.
- ^ Quoted in The Times Saturday Review, loc.cit.
- ^ Cf., for example, The Baleful Head by Edward Burne-Jones (1874), whose 2011 biographer has described him as "a perfect artist for that period [late 1960s] of flower power, sex, drugs and rock 'n'roll" (Fiona MacCarthy, op.cit.).
- ^ Rebecca Nicholson in Sunday Times Culture, 19 September 2010
- ^ The Times Playlist, 8 May 2010. See also ES Magazine, 14 May 2010: "Karen Elson and Jack White: The Addams Family of Rock".
- ^ Wasilak, Sarah. "Karen Elson for Agent Provocateur | POPSUGAR Fashion UK". Fabsugar.co.uk. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
- ^ BlackBook, June/July 2008 (supra)
- ^ See, for example, Tim Adams in The Guardian, 30 April 2011
- ^ In her biography of Burne-Jones (The Last Pre-Raphaelite, 2011), Fiona MacCarthy referred to a "special kind of mysticism" in his major works. Citing this observation in a review, David Waller observed that "the girls are high born and ethereal, the men dreamy and knightly, the whole transfused with an idiosyncratic beauty": History Today, October 2011, page 62.
- ^ The Times, 30 April 2011
- ^ Style, 6 June 2004
- ^ Style, 16 January 2005
- ^ Style, 2 July 2006
- ^ Clare Coulson, The birth of Foho , 16 May 2007
- ^ Evening Standard Magazine, 11 March 2005
- ^ Dean Nelson, Sunday Times, 15 October 2006
- ^ London Lite, 14 May 2007. "Hippy, hippy chic" was a pun on Hippy Hippy Shake, the title of a 1963 hit record by the Swinging Blue Jeans
- ^ Times Magazine, 1 July 2006
- ^ The Times, 2 November 2006
- ^ Hedley Freeman, Guardian, 24 June 2005
- ^ La Ferla, Ruth (6 March 2005). "Mary-Kate, Fashion Star". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 November 2007.
- ^ Sunday Times, 7 January 2007
- ^ Kristale Ivezay, The South End, 8 April 2005
- ^ Quoted in The Times Body & Soul, 9 August 2008
- ^ Jessica Brinton, Style, 22 October 2006
- ^ Jessica Paster, Style, 24 September 2006
- ^ Giles Hattersley in Sunday Times Style, 17 July 2011
- ^ Metro, 13 May 2010
- ^ Carola Long in The Times Guide to Paris Fashion and Style, October 2006
- ^ a b National Geographic, August 2003
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 25 March 2007
- ^ The Times Guide to Paris Fashion and Style October 2006
- ^ The Times Luxx, 26 November 2011. Dockery added that, when wearing long dresses, she tried not to look "too Downton Abbey ... I like to make it a little bit more edgy".
- ^ Sunday Times Magazine, 1 January 2012
- book of that name (1949) by Simone de Beauvoir.
- ^ Sunday Times Style, 25 March 2007. Islington is an upper-middle class area of London; the Sex Pistols were a leading punk band of the late 1970s.
- ^ Brian Scofield, Sunday Times Travel, 18 July 2010
- ^ Sunday Times, 18 July 2010
- ^ Country Life, 21 October 2009
- ^ Style, 20 August 2006
- ^ Style, 19 June 2006
- ^ The Times Knowledge, 24 June 2006