B oho chic, the summer uniform of the early 2000s, is back. Hello again, off-the-shoulder blouses and ruffled skirts. Straw baskets, vintage slip dresses and artisanal quilted jackets: we missed you.
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Boho chic is fashion’s favourite guilty pleasure. Summer rolls around, and women who have spent the year to date in crisp shirting and understated neutral tailoring go weak at the knees at the first hint of an embroidered blouse with pom poms on the drawstring. You only have to say the word “festival” to a British woman and she’ll be head to toe in paisley with a faded denim waistcoat, an armful of bead bracelets and a starsign necklace.
The first jangle of a coin belt is like the first notes of the ice-cream van song: a nostalgia trip into half-remembered, hazy summers of the past. But this summer, you don’t even have to pretend to be too cool to partake, because boho is officially in vogue again. There are capes and layered necklaces at Chloé, as seen at Paris fashion week.
There are ruffles and lace in Sienna Miller’s M&S collection . On the 10th anniversary of Kate Moss’s peak Glastonbury years, boho is staging a full-scale fashion revival. I’m guessing that our collective soft spot for boho fashion is to do with the fact that it speaks to an alter ego that lives within most of us.
There is a bohemian, rule-breaking, live-for-toda.