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Boho-chic is a style of fashion drawing on various Bohemianism and hippie influences, which, at its height in late 2005 was associated particularly with actress Sienna Miller, model Kate Moss in the United Kingdom and actress/businesswoman Mary-Kate Olsen in the United States. It has been seen since the early 1990s and, although appearing to wane from time to time, has repeatedly re-surfaced in varying guises. Many elements of boho-chic became popular in the late 1960s and some date back much further, being associated, for example, with pre-Raphaelite women of the mid-to-late 19th century.
Luxe grunge (also known as luxe bohemian) may be a synonym;See The Times, 2 November 2006 a updated grunge-boho collection with an unkempt approach to wardrobe. First motivated by Seattle's groundbreaking rock scene in the 1990s – the modern update contains all the mainstays of yesterday's grunge (flannel, plaid, layers and leg warmers) alongside today's sophisticated pieces, including capes, shawls and jackets. The It Lists, Sept 2006 Grunge elements featured strongly in fashion collections in Autumn 2006, including styles referred to "cocktail grunge" and "modern Gothic fashion". Sunday Times Style, 24 September 2006 Lisa Armstrong, fashion editor of the London Times, referred to Patrick Lichfield's iconic 1969 photograph of Talitha Getty on a Marrakesh roof-top as "typifying the luxe bohemian look" The Times, 2 November 2006
Virginia Nicholson (granddaughter of Vanessa Bell, one of the pivotal figures of the unconventional, but influential "Bloomsbury Group" in the first half of the 20th century) has described it as a "curious slippery adjective". Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900–1939, 2002 Although the original were inhabitants of central Europe, the term has, as Nicholson noted, "attached itself to individuals as disparate as Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes". The writer and historian A. N. Wilson remarked that, "in his dress-sense as in much else", Winston Churchill was "pre-First World War Bohemianism", his unbleached linen suit causing surprise when he arrived in Canada in 1943.A. N. Wilson (2005) After the Victorians
In Arthur Conan Doyle's first short story about Holmes for The Strand, Doctor Watson noted that the detective "loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul". A Scandal in Bohemia, 1891 Designer Savannah Miller, elder sister of actress Sienna Miller, described a "real bohemian" as "someone who has the ability to appreciate beauty on a deep level, is a profound romantic, doesn't know any limits, whose world is their own creation, rather than living in a box". Sunday Times Style, 20 August 2006
By the spring of 2005, boho was almost ubiquitous in parts of London and was invading stores in almost every British high street. Closer, 10–16 September 2005 Its adherents were sometimes referred to as "Siennas", Vogue, December 2006 this eponym even being applied to Miller herself: "Sienna's Sienna-ishness", as Jessica Brinton put it in the Sunday Times in 2007. Sunday Times Style, 5 August 2007. Features included "floaty" skirts (notably long white ones), furry , embroidered tunics, cropped jackets, large faux-coin belts, sheepskin (UGG Australia) boots and , baggy cardigans and "". Demand was so great that there were allegations the following year of some sub-contractors' having used cheap child labour in India for zari embroidery and Beadwork. Sunday Times, 15 October 2006
Footless tights or "leggings", of which Miller was a proponent, were a contributory factor in the halving of sales of stockings in Britain between 2003 and 2007. London Lite, 18 July 2007
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 Laura Ashley – "all folds of floral cotton and centre partings".Deborah Arthurs, London Lite, 14 May 2007 Actresses Mischa Barton and Milla Jovovich were cited as exponents of this look, while Jade Jagger (daughter of Sir Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, and Bianca Jagger) was said to be promoting her own style of "Balearic Islands boho" on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza, a long-time haven for beatniks and hippies who colonised the village of Sant Carles in the 1960s.Iain Stewart, Ibiza & Formentera (Rough Guide Directions, 2nd ed., 2008)
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".Sandy Mitchell, The Tatler, November 2010. The particular context of Jagger's observations was her styling of a group of villas in Marrakech. Jagger modelled for designer Matthew Williamson, whose style has been described as combining "Ibiza glamour" with "London cool". Sunday Times Style, 17 October 2010 Sienna Miller has written that, when she first met Williamson, whose muse she became, Sunday Times Style, 16 January 2005 in her mother's kitchen in 2001
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".Sienna Miller, Sunday Times Style, 17 October 2010
In 2011 "destination dressing" for Ibiza was still deemed to "embrace boho chic with a hint of understated glamour"Harriet Stewart, Sunday Times Style, 17 July 2011
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 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".Deborah Arthurs in London Lite, 3 September 2007 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". The following year, the Sunday Times, noting that one in two Americans and one in five Britons were reportedly sporting , observed that Miller "completed her luxe-layabout look with a cluster of stars on her silken shoulder";Alice Fordham in Sunday Times Style, 13 July 2008 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".
Another, rather distinctive, exponent of the "Vintage clothing" look was actress and singer Zooey Deschanel, who, in June 2008, appeared on the front cover of the magazine BlackBook in a black lace-edged swimsuit. In the same year, a journalist wrote of Deschanel:
Deschanel's "kooky" styleFor example, Radio Times, 23 March 2013 subsequently found a popular outlet as Los Angeles teacher Jess Day, whom she played in the Fox TV sitcom, New Girl (2011–2018). Jess's fashion preferences, including some striking brassières in a range of colours,Notably a purple demi rhinestone bra by Victoria's Secret in series 2, episode 15 ("Cooler") attracted much interest, while, around the same time, Anastasia (Ana) Steel's tastes in E. L. James' best-selling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) were thought to have assisted sales of exotic lingerie.Rachel Felder in New York Times, 13 February 2013. Blue was a favoured color (Natalie Portman as Dr. Emma Kurtzman was shown dressing hastily for work in a lacy blue bra in the 2011 film, No Strings Attached) and was Ana's own preference: "I'm in the pale blue lacy perfect-fit bra. Thank heavens". Fifty Shades of Grey, chapter 8 In 2010, the winning German entry for the Eurovision Song Contest proclaimed, "I even did my hair for you/I bought new underwear, they're blue" ( Satellite, sung by Lena). In 2013 X Factor contestant Diana Vickers wore blue panties (with a short white top bearing the legend, "LOST MY MIND") for a widely publicised photoshoot for the magazine FHM. Metro, 7 November 2013; FHM, January 2014. In one photograph Vickers was holding a copy of Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries.
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",Fashion Union, The Fashionista's Pocket Guide to Miami, Spring 2010 while Avon Products introduced a perfumed spray called "Boho Chic". Monsoon, founded in 1973 and still described by the Sunday Times in 2010 as "the boho chic fashion retailer", saw its pre-tax profits rise dramatically during the recession of the late noughties: from £3.6 million in 2008 to £32.6 million in the year to August 2009. Sunday Times Business, 21 March 2010. In early 2010 Monsoon planned to open a further 140 stores worldwide in the coming year.
In 2010 the Sunday Times anticipated that the medieval head chain – "a step on from the hippie head band" – would be a feature of that year's festival circuit, "instantly adding summer bohemia to your look". Socialite Nicole Richie's "beatnik/Glam rock mash-up" was cited as an example of this trend, while Peaches Geldof, model and daughter of rock musician Bob Geldof, was identified as another who had adopted the look. Sunday Times Style, 13 June 2010 Later in the year the Sunday Times lauded the " haute hippie, bohemian splendour and punked up classics" that were putting "a modern spin on 1970s style". These included a cream crochet dress by Marc Jacobs (" haute hippie") and a devoré dress and fringed scarf by Emilio Pucci ("boho splendour").Lucy Ewing, Sunday Times Style, 17 October 2010
By the late autumn of 2010 The Times noted the desirability in the UK of fake fur ("Recession chic lets Britain go full pelt for the fake fur"), with Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's TU retailing bestselling coats at a time of economic stringency. According to Lisa Armstrong, "everyone from Kate Moss to Alexa Chung, Fearne Cotton to Kylie Minogue Minogue, Rachel Bilson and Taylor Momsen to Carine Roitfeld had been swaddling themselves in exotic cat prints with varying degrees of success". The Times, 27 November 2010 Armstrong speculated also that the "Impossible Boot", based on a 1930s snow boot and so-called by its designer Penelope Chilvers because it had "proved a headache to make", might, despite its relatively high cost (£325–375), displace the Ugg, which had been a durable boho accessory. As Armstrong put it wrily, the Impossible was "perfect for après-ski" in the fashionably bohemian London districts of Primrose Hill or Dalston.
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 Julie Christie and Marion Cotillard, who "handle the glare of fame with a large dose of reality", Miller being described as "a professional free spirit who, annoyingly, seems to have more fun than anyone else".Jessica Brinton, Sunday Times Style, 6 April 2008 In that year, Miller's appearance as the poet Dylan Thomas's wife, Caitlin Macnamara in the film The Edge of Love caused one journalist to refer to "a new romantic style: woe-ho chic"Fleur Britten, Sunday Times Style, 28 April 2008 This referred to the austerity clothing of the 1940s, worn also in the film by Keira Knightley:
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".Cosmo Landesman, Sunday Times Culture, 22 June 2008
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".Camilla St John, London Lite, 14 May 2007
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.
The practice of meeting such demand, pioneered by the Spanish firm Zara, and of which Shepherdson, until she left Topshop in 2006, was the leading British proponent,Josephine Collins (Draper's Magazine), Today, BBC Radio 4, 6 October 2006 became known as "fast fashion". The Scotsman, 30 April 2003
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 Olsen and Ashley Olsen (through their clothing label, The Row), the Australian model Gemma Ward thelondonpaper, 24 October 2007 and the rising Ukrainian singer Mika Newton (the latter notably in photographs associated with her début album of 2005, Anomaliya).
Reflecting on Welch's broader influence, one rock journalist noted in 2010 that "even Cheryl Cole of has gone gothic princess on her ... single, "Promise This", and she's looking very Florence in the pop video, all black and raggedy ballet tutu".Rebecca Nicholson in Sunday Times Culture, 19 September 2010 in June 2010|239x239px]]
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.Clare Coulson, The birth of Foho , 16 May 2007 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 created by Tom Ford for the Italian house of Gucci) in a feature about "gypsy queens", Evening Standard Magazine, 11 March 2005 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".Dean Nelson, Sunday Times, 15 October 2006 In 2007 London Lite hailed the return of "hippy, hippy chic" 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 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". Times Magazine, 1 July 2006
Bobo chic was associated in particular with Punk subculture in the SoHo area of Lower Manhattan, to the south of Greenwich Village. It was described by a student fashion writer as "paying to look poor" and having been "made popular by silver screen stars who all look like they got dressed in the dark like the Olsen twins, Kirsten Dunst and Chloë Sevigny".Kristale Ivezay, The South End, 8 April 2005 In 2008 English actress Sophie Winkleman, who had attended Cambridge University in the 1990s, remarked wryly that she had "worn floaty dresses at university ... thinking that I looked poetic and wistful. I actually looked homeless".Quoted in The Times Body & Soul, 9 August 2008 Another British commentator referred to Mary-Kate Olsen's "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to dressing", but noted that, by 2006, the Olsens' merchandising empire was recording annual sales of £500 million.Jessica Brinton, Style, 22 October 2006
The bobo style of dress has been described as "retro-hippie-shabby chic", its elements including jersey tops, boiled wool jackets, smart jeans, Converse Athletic shoe and leather bags by Jerome Dreyfuss (born 1974). The Times Guide to Paris Fashion and Style October 2006 A leading exponent was actress and singer Vanessa Paradis, who particularly favoured the designs of Isabel Marant (born 1967), while English actress Michelle Dockery, best known for her part as Lady Mary Crawley in the early 20th century drama Downton Abbey (2010–14), cited Anglo-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg as one of her style icons: "I love that she looks like she's just thrown it on. Simplicity is true elegance". 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". Around the same time, another British actress Karen Gillan, best known as Amy Pond in the BBC's science-fiction series Doctor Who, defined the look of 1960s model Jean Shrimpton, whom she greatly admired and had just portrayed in a filmed drama for television, as "messy, gamine, bony". She herself professed a liking for vintage clothing:
"When girls do the walk of shame ... I think they look best like that, slightly dishevelled." The Kate Moss look? "Yeah". Sunday Times Magazine, 1 January 2012
Some of the teenaged rock bands, such as Second SexSecond Sex took their name from the Second Sex of that name (1949) by Simone de Beauvoir. and the Plastiscines, that emerged in France c. 2006 and were known collectively as les bébés rockers ("baby rockers"), were initially derided in some sections of the press because of their bobo backgrounds: as Kate Spicer observed in the Sunday Times, "it's as if a bunch of privileged Islington kids had picked up their guitars and proclaimed themselves the new Sex Pistols". Sunday Times Style, 25 March 2007. Islington is an upper-middle class area of London; the Sex Pistols were a leading punk rock band of the late 1970s. By 2010 bobos – "free-thinkers at the weekend, but bankers Monday to Friday" – were said to be squeezing out young, genuinely creative Parisians from their traditional neighborhoods,Brian Scofield, Sunday Times Travel, 18 July 2010 with Porte de Bagnolet, in the 20th arrondissement, cited as an alternative base for "the next generation of diverse Parisian voices". Sunday Times, 18 July 2010 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. Country Life, 21 October 2009
The European fashion style Lagenlook, which is an loanword from German meaning "layered look," is considered a Bohemian style.
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 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". The Times Knowledge, 24 June 2006
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