Why Boho Chic Is Having a Moment—Again

“Don’t you think ‘boho chic’ sounds annoying?” Sienna Miller asked The Guardian in a recent interview. Miller has repeatedly objected to being the poster woman for the trend, a mantle she wore for a good portion of the noughties. The 1960s and ’70s simply resonated with her, she’s claimed. She wore whatever she picked up at vintage shops around London. But her denial—the insistence that she just liked what she liked—spoke to the essence of a seemingly carefree yet meticulously curated ideal of “nonchalant” dressing.

The look that Miller and her cohort—which included Kate Moss, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Rachel Zoe—perfected is unmistakable. They were often photographed traipsing at music festivals or around nightclubs in strappy sandals and short, clingy tunics with wide belts slung around the hips. Peasant sleeves and flowing skirts were paired with thigh-high leather boots and topped with a fur gilet and a vintage hat. It was a new costume for a new performance of celebrity: being captured off the red carpet in more candid, unpolished, and, well, hedonistic moments. The ensembles were usually accessorized with huge sunglasses and tumbling locks of hair—the more undone the better.

Two decades later, boho chic is back. At Valentino, a model in a feathered, floppy-brimmed hat walked down the runway in clashing prints. At Sacai, a ­sumptuous fur vest made an unexpected appearance. Studded leather clogs and sandals popped up at Miu Miu, Burberry, and Hermès. Slouchy bucket bags and hobo satchels were present at Ralph Lauren, Prada, and Michael Kors.

Then, of course, there’s Chloé. Chemena Kamali, who became the brand’s creative director in 2023, has been unabashed about mining the house’s archives to create ruffled dresses in pastel-colored chiffons and silks, an abundance of distressed leather jackets, and dramatically oversize carryalls. Like Miller (whom Kamali brought on to be a brand ambassador, enveloping her in cascading gowns for multiple red carpet events), the designer gently dismisses the term “boho chic,” claiming it’s reductive.

Kamali is right to suggest that the look has a long history. The bohemian craze of the 1960s—when Twiggy, Talitha Getty, and Barbra Streisand all shopped at Biba, one of London’s most iconic ­clothing stores—referenced earlier style-setters, including the decadent 1920s Bloomsbury Group and the romantics of the Victorian era. The ’60s were a genuinely revolutionary time in fashion, when the postwar generation sought a new way of seeing—and dressing for—the world; Gaby Aghion, who had started Chloé in 1952 because she “loved the idea of couture but found the concept a little out of date,” understood this perfectly. In 1964, Aghion hired a young Karl Lagerfeld to design for Chloé with a spirit of accessibility for the modern woman. The bohemianism they and other designers, such as Biba’s Barbara Hulanicki and Yves Saint Laurent, championed was ultimately about an idea of femininity that rejected the formality of the old world order. Their popularity reflected the rapid social changes happening at the time, as feminism, gay liberation, anti-colonialism, and Black civil rights gained momentum.

Just as the 2000s bohemian craze came at the end of a stark minimalism that had captivated the fashion world, thanks to brands like Jil Sander, Prada, and Helmut Lang, the current reinvention is responding to what preceded it. It’s a flamboyant reaction to the tyranny of quiet luxury and athleisure, and reflects how once countercultural values have become mainstream. Now CEOs invite one another to ayahuasca retreats and fashion houses print feminist slogans on clothes that sell out. Everyone fancies themselves a free spirit, or at least admires that mentality. We may not be changing the world with the values of the 1960s, but we can still embrace how cool they make us feel.