Boho-chic

Boho-chic is a style of female fashion drawing on various bohemian and hippie influences, that, at its height in 2004-5, was associated particularly with actress Sienna Miller in the United Kingdom and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in the United States. This trend has been going on since late 2000.

Lexicography

"Boho"

"Boho" is an abbreviation of bohemianism. Vanessa 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 Bohemians were travellers or refugees from central Europe (the French "bohémien" translates as "gypsy"), the term has, as Nicholson noted, "attached itself to individuals as disparate as Jesus Christ, 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 Bohemian", 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" and "remained in our lodgings in Baker-street, buried among his old books and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition..". ["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]

"Chic"

"Chic" was borrowed from French in the late 19th century and has come to mean stylish or elegant.

Elements of boho-chic

The boho look, which owed much to the hippie styles of the late 1960s, became especially popular after Sienna Miller's appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in 2004, ["Style", 26 December 2004] although some of its features were apparent from photographs of her taken in October 2003 ["Glamour", April 2004] 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. ["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 gilets, embroidered tunics, cropped jackets, large faux-coin belts, sheepskin ("Ugg") boots and cowboy boots, baggy cardigans and "hobo bags". 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 beading. ["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] .

Boho trends: 2004-8

ienna Miller in 2004-5

Sienna Miller's relationship with – and, for a time, engagement to – actor Jude Law, after they had starred together in the 2004 film, "Alfie", kept both her and her style of dress [ [http://www.getlippy.com/starstyle/siennamiller/herstyle/ Sienna Miller - Star style ] ] in the media headlines during 2004-5. In December 2004, "Vogue" featured Miller on its front cover and described her as "the girl of the year" "Vogue", December 2004] . Later, the ending of her relationship with Law seemed to signal that boho too was past its peak. In fact, as early as May 2005 "Sunday Times Style" had declared that "overexposed" white peasant skirts were "going down" ["Style", 16 May 2005] and had advised adherents of boho to "update your boho mojo" by mixing the look with metallic items (anticipating so-called "boho-rock" in 2006) or with layers."Style", 1 May 2005] By the end of 2005, Miller herself, who claimed later that her boho look was not very original - "I think I'd just come back from travelling or something" "Sunday Times Style", 5 August 2007] - had adopted other styles of dress and her shorter, bobbed hairstyle – ironically a feature of bohemian fashion in the quarter century before World War II – helped to define a new trend in 2006. ["Hair", June 2006] She was quoted in "Vogue" as saying "no more boho chic ... I feel less hippie. I just don't want to wear anything floaty or coin-belty ever again. No more gilets ...". ["Vogue", January 2006] Even so, in 2007, Miller reflected that

It was 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 I'd think, "But I liked those clothes - it's not my fault that they were copied, you wore them and now you're sick of them" .

Folk/"diluted" boho look of 2007-8

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." ["Times Magazine", 23 September 2006] Even so, the so-called "folk" look of spring 2007, with its smock tops and flounce hemmed dresses, owed much to boho-chic, while embracing such trends as the re-emergence of the mini-dress: as the "Sunday Times" put it, "if you are still bemoaning the passing of the gypsy look, then the folk trend could be your saving grace" "Sunday Times Style", 18 March 2007] . The "Sunday Times" cited the 1960s singer Mary Hopkin as influencing the use of bandannas , while, around the same time, Sienna Miller's appearance as 1960s "starlet" Edie Sedgwick in the film "Factory Girl" positioned her once more as a bohemian style icon. "London Lite" observed in May 2007 that:

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 boho" on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza .

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 "her 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" 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 tattoos, observed that Miller "complete [d] 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".

2008: 70s retro and "broderie anglaise"

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" ["Sky Mag", June 2008] , 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 ["Your M&S", May/June 2008. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the tile of 1975 hit record by the British rock group Queen.] . 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 favourite label of American actress Rachel Bilson ["thelondonpaper", 1 June 2008] , who has cited Kate Moss and actress Diane Keaton as among her stylistic influences [ [http://www.futuremovies.co.uk/filmmaking.asp?ID=185 Rachel Bilson, The Last Kiss Q&A ] ] .

The influence and exponents of boho

ienna Miller or Kate Moss?

Some, including actress Lindsay Lohan, [ [http://www.vogue.co.uk/vogue_daily/story/story.asp?stid=28158&date=&sid= Kate Moss has a new A-list fan | Vogue.com ] ] 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"; ["New York Magazine", 5 April 2004] and in 2006 "Times" fashion editor Lisa Armstrong described a plaited leather belt of the previous year as a "Boho 'Kate' belt". ["Times Magazine", 20 May 2006] Nevertheless, it was the apparently unaffected ease with which Sienna Miller (dubbed by some as the "new Kate Moss" [See, for example, London "Evening Standard", 5 November 2004] ) 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 . 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 that anyone else" [Jessica Brinton, "Sunday Times Style", 6 April 2008] .

The appeal and impact of boho

The cross-generational appeal of boho helped, among other things, to influence the ranges that brought about a revival in the fortunes of Marks and Spencer in 2005-2006. An illustration of this, just as boho as such was nearing its end, was M&S's use of 1960s' icon Twiggy and younger models such as Laura Bailey ("the natural choice for the season's bohemian chic" ["Your M&S", Christmas 2005] ) for a major advertising campaign in late 2005. In 2006 the "Sunday Times" identified fur gilets and "ugg-a-likes" as preferred winter wear for middle-aged women whom it described as the "botox-and-better-sex-after-40 brigade"."Style", 18 June 2006]

In their differing ways, British singers Joss Stone and Rachel Stevens were both held up as exemplars of boho. Author and critic Bruce Dessau wrote of American actress and singer Juliette Lewis that "there is something odd about [her] attractive boho-chic appearance in a stringy black vest, vintage beads and blue skirt that I cannot quite locate". ["The Times", 12 June 2006] 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.

Boho as fast fashion

The impact of boho illustrated certain broader trends in what Shane Watson referred to as "the way we dress now":"Style", 17 September 2006] that fashion was increasingly being dictated, not by the main houses, but what Watson called "the triple-F crowd" (famous and fashion-forward), of which Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan and Sienna Miller were exemplars; that, once they had spotted new fashions, young women were not prepared to wait a season for them to become available; and that, 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".

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]

Related trends

The Olsen twins: ashcan/bobo chic

In the United States, twin actresses 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". [cite news
author=La Ferla, Ruth
title=Mary-Kate, Fashion Star
work=The New York Times
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06EFD81E3DF935A35750C0A9639C8B63
publisher=The New York Times Company
date=2005-03-06
accessdate=2007-11-08] The term, "bobo chic" (also known as "hobo-grunge" ["Sunday Times", 7 January 2007] , "heroin chic" or "luxe grunge"), had similar connotations, "bobo" (or "BoBo") being a contraction of "bourgeois" and "bohemian" coined by "New York Times" columnist David Brooks in his book, "Bobos in Paradise" (2000). Bobo chic was associated in particular with punks 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 early nineties, remarked wryly that she had "wor [n] 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]

A "catwalk" refinement of 2006, of which actresses Kate Bosworth and Thandie Newton were said to be exponents, was referred to as "cocktail grunge": "looking done-undone ... it's what Marianne Faithfull and Blondie would be wearing if they were young now". [Jessica Paster, "Style", 24 September 2006]

French "bobos"

In the world of Parisian fashion, the term "le bobo" (short for "Bourgeois Bohème"), which also had political connotations, was applied to "typically discerning customers who are left wing and Left Bank" [Carola Long in "The Times Guide to Paris Fashion and Style", October 2006] ; or, put another way, "that subset of thirty- or forty-something-year-olds who don't allow their socialist leanings to interfere with an enjoyment of material pleasures" "National Geographic", August 2003] . As such, "la gauche caviar" [the caviar left] was sometimes applied as an epithet to "bobos" ["Sunday Times Style", 25 March 2007] .

The "bobo" style of dress has been described as "retro-hippie-shabby-chic" , its elements including jersey tops, boiled wool jackets, smart jeans, Converse training shoes and leather bags by Jerome Dreyfuss (b.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 (b.1967). [ [http://www.modeaparis.com/va/couturiers/ima/index.html Fédération Française de la Couture ] ] Some of the teenage rock bands, such as Second Sex [Second Sex took their name from the book 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", were 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 band of the late 1970s.] .

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". [Claudia Croft, "Style", 2 July 2006] 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" ["Evening Standard Magazine", 15 September 2006] 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] ". [Britt Bardo, "Style", 24 September 2006] The gothic look was in vogue again in the autumn of 2007, a sleeker "dark Victorian style" being associated with, among others, Miller, the Olsen twins (though their clothing label, The Row) and the Australian model Gemma Ward. ["thelondonpaper", 24 October 2007]

"Woe-ho chic"

Sienna Miller's appearance as the poet Dylan Thomas's wife, Caitlin MacNamara in the film "The Edge of Love" (2008) 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:

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 [Britten, 28 April 2008] .

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 Landesmann, "Sunday Times Culture", 22 June 2008] .

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". ["Style", 20 August 2006] 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". ["Style", 19 June 2006] 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 has 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]

Other boho terminology of 2004-7

In advance of Glastonbury 2004, the "Sunday Times" coined the term "festival chic", for a style with some similarities to boho. ["Style", 6 June 2004] It subsequently labelled a photographic spread of Sienna Miller, Lauren Bailey, Erin O'Connor and other muses of designer Matthew Williamson as "boho babes", ["Style", 16 January 2005] advised its readers to "think art-school chic" by adopting layers of clashing colours and, in 2006, noted that "last year's boho babe" had become "this year's boho-rock chick". ["Style", 2 July 2006]

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] The look, and term, taking their influence from both the boho look and "the heavy influence of folk culture" and had been seen on the likes of Sienna Miller and Kate Moss. [ [http://www.fashionising.com/lifestyle/blog/title/Boho-is-dead,-long-live-Foho/entry/533/ "Boho is dead, long live Foho"] Fashionising, 18 May, 2007]

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", ["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 Swinging Blue Jeans.] .

"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]

Morocco

In 2006 the "Sunday Times" described the Moroccan resort and seaport of Essaouira as the "boho/barefoot-chic beach" because of its association with fashionable "Euro aesthetes worth their Talitha Getty-esque kaftans". The latter was a reference to an iconic photograph of Talitha Pol, wife of Paul Getty, that was taken by Patrick Lichfield in Marrakesh in 1969. This image was described by Lisa Armstrong as "typif [ying] the luxe bohemian look". ["The Times", 2 November 2006] Anticipating Glastonbury 2005, Hedley Freeman in the "Guardian" had recommended the wearing of headscarves to achieve "Talitha Getty chic". [Hedley Freeman, Guardian, 24 June 2005]

Notes