Fashion is back to loving boho-chic But what about consumers?

Sitting on a green meadow with a cigarette in hand, in the new editorial of Interview Magazine, actress Lily-Rose Depp looks into the camera wearing a silk baby-doll dress by Chloé, held under the bust by a lace ribbon. The star's look is purely boho-chic: an aesthetic born in the late 2000s at Coachella, featuring feathers and long pearl necklaces, but inspired by the free-spirited expression of the flower children of the 1970s. After years of absence, boho-chic made noise again at Paris Fashion Week FW24, particularly thanks to the debut show of Chemena Kamali as Chloé’s new creative director. With ruffles, high wooden clogs, and hobo bags, the designer offered the audience a journey through the brand's history, from Karl Lagerfeld's artistic direction in the 1970s to Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo in the early 2000s (when Kamali worked in the maison's design offices). The particularity of neo-boho-chic is that the trend started from the runway and not from social media, unlike other contemporary aesthetic movements like indie sleaze and coquette-core. Since it was set "from above," and not from the streets or democratic online spaces, the trend risked being confined to the high-fashion bubble, yet it was not: on Google, searches for boho-chic increased by 59% compared to last year, while on TheRealReal, interest in Chloé rose by 37% just 24 hours after the show. Following Kamali’s debut show, a representative of the resale platform told Vogue Business, sales of vintage Chloé pieces increased by 130% month by month. Could it be that, after years of trends born on TikTok and Instagram, fashion has finally returned to setting trends?

For the first time in months (if not years), the runways have managed to dictate a fashion trend before social media could. It remains a nostalgic aesthetic, like indie sleaze and Y2K, yet this time the trend seems to breathe fresh air. Perhaps because, unlike its predecessors, it is forced to distance itself from politically ambiguous roots and reinvent itself according to the standards of cancel culture; or perhaps because, apart from Chloé—boho-chic by nature—the genre does not belong to one signature or another: as Vassallo points out, boho-chic can be interpreted in a wholly personal way, even through vintage accessories or unlabeled garments, making each look original. Once it becomes mainstream again, it’s possible boho-chic might seem repetitive, but it’s also possible that consumers will surprisingly manage to make it authentic. As everyone’s style should be, after all.