Meet The Indie Designers Elevating Bohemian Style And Keeping It Chic

Bohemian style goes back a hundreds of years, and while it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when and where the aesthetic began, it has always signaled a counter-cultural, individualistic, free-spirited outlook on life.

In the beginning, that may have been out of necessity. In the early 18th century following the French Revolution, wealthy patrons dropped their support of the arts, and many artists were thrown into poverty, necessitating a certain creativity with their wardrobes. Uniquely placed lace, beading, patchwork, and copious accessories became hallmarks of a less materialistic, more nomadic lifestyle with a deep connection to nature.

Bohemian style also has connections with Romani people starting in the 19th century. The French used the derogatory term “Bohémien” to describe Romani people, mistakenly believing they were from the Bohemia region of the Czech Republic.

Fast forward to the 20th century when hippies attending the 1969 Woodstock music festival put Bohemian fashion in the public eye in a big way. In the ‘70s, designers like Yves Saint Laurent with his Rive Gauche collection made the style not just palatable but aspirational in the fashion world. Celebrities like Cher, Bianca Jagger, and Jane Barkin, became icons of Bohemian style.

Then came the early aughts and the music festival industry—which has grown to a more than $2 billion business—and Boho style became the costume of choice (feather earrings, flower crowns, fringe jackets, flowy dresses). Music festivals rose in popularity alongside the proliferation of fast fashion, so anyone could easily and cheaply acquire what they needed to be a free spirit for the day.

Modern Bohemian

In recent years, the boho aesthetic has gained popularity once again, possibly as a reaction to the rise of social media, fast fashion, and artificial intelligence. Consumers crave handmade garments that exhibit evidence of the human touch, which often leads them to smaller, independent brands.

Alix of Bohemia is a small but coveted brand founded by Alix Verley-Pietrafesa in 2009. As an art history student in Scotland, the designer was inspired by garments she inherited from her grandmother.

“It was this incredible Pucci and Valentino and everything was so well made,” Verley-Pietrafesa said. “And it was very seventies and I just wasn't seeing anything like that around. So I started to play with cloth, and my art history background was the lens I was looking through when I was creating. And then my friends started buying off my back.”

Pietrafesa handmade 2,500 one-of-a-kind pieces over a period of about eight years. When her husband, Sebastian Kaufmann, now CEO of the brand, saw how much work went into creating a single garment, he convinced her to scale by signing on a team of artisans.

“Everything in the collection really bears the stamp of the handmade. It's either hand printed, hand woven, hand embroidered, hand quilted,” Kaufmann said. “So that feeling of the maker's touch is behind every piece. And that's how we carry the torch of the handmade—each piece has a little natural variation.”

Jillian Shatken, founder and creative director at Saylor, a brand beloved for vacation-ready dresses and special occasion sets, also looks to artisans around the world to create colorful details in the pieces she designs.

“I'm so inspired by textiles that are handmade in India. You really see the craftsmanship that goes into everything,” Shatken said. “I mean, people are beading the ends of tassels—just like the tiniest little details. As a designer, you get caught up in those things. And the maximalist in me loves all of it.”

Small Brand Boom

Farm Rio’s meteoric growth might be the best indicator of bohemian style’s increasing popularity. Katia Barros and Marcello Bastos began selling the brand’s bold, joyful prints, often featuring detailed embellishment and embroidery, in 1997 out of a booth at the Babilônia Feira Hype marketplace in Rio de Janeiro. When they entered the American market in 2019, they saw explosive growth, and have used profits to grow the brand’s offerings and open new stores. Farm Rio now has 86 stores in Brazil, and 3 recently-opened storefronts in the United States.

Diotima, one of the most talked-about designers of New York Fashion Week earlier this month, designs using signatures of bohemian style, with touches of appliqué, blousy silhouettes, and crochet. The collective result is less dirty hippie and (much) more it girl.

Larger brands often flirt with bohemian vibes as well. We saw it in 2022 spring collections from Altuzarra with tie dye and beading, Etro with enormous earrings and crochet dresses, and Maje with floral bellbottoms and more crochet.

Chloe’s fall 2024 collection, with Chemena Kamali as its new creative director (who was an intern with the brand under the beloved Phoebe Philo and a design director under creative director Clare Waight Keller), returned to its boho chic roots with billowing chiffon dresses and skirts jauntily tucked into tall boots.

Anna Sui has attracted generations of shoppers who love her colorful, sometimes girly, sometimes grungy, sometimes preppy designs—the combination of which often reads bohemian. With 30+ decades in business, the brand remains independent, and Sui credits her extended family for keeping her connected to young consumers. Her fall 2024 show mixed looks from her archive with new designs that featuring faux lamb fur trim with paisley, patchwork, and argyle.

Sacred Symbols

Fast fashion brands, meanwhile, crank out mountains of flowy polyester dresses and headbands annually in preparation for festival season and beyond. Often, the faster the fashion, the less thoughtful the design process, and that can lead brands into the murky waters of cultural appropriation—though the offense has been perpetrated by brands from Forever 21 (headdresses and more) to Marc Jacobs (dreadlocks), and Gucci (turbans).

“Fashion is defined by ever-increasing speed, and capitalism is about the quest for profit,” Eulanda Sanders, a merchandising and design professor at Iowa State University, told WWD in 2020. “If you ask a designer to produce so many collections per year, which in itself is an unsustainable proposition, you can’t expect a designer to do proper research.”

Bohemian fashion runs a particular risk of cultural appropriation because it borrows from and romanticizes nomadic, creative lifestyles—often from Indian, Romani, and Indigenous American cultures. And the styles are often designed and worn by white models and customers with privilege who, while perhaps inspired by various cultures, don’t always involve them directly or give them credit where due.

Consumers and watchdog groups are increasingly sensitive to cultural appropriation, and some brands are doing their part to keep bohemian style alive while focusing on craftsmanship and working directly with artisans.

“We visit our factories on an annual basis, they get paid a fair wage, and conditions are clean and safe,” said Shatken of Saylor. “One of our India factories is unique in that it also trains women tailors, which is traditionally a male dominated career in India. Many of these India factories are actually run by women.”

By working directly with the artisans, designers support them so they can earn a living, which also ensures they can continue to practice and preserve their craft.

“We aim to preserve traditional craft by paying fair prices, rather than replicating methods cheaply in other countries,” said Verley-Pietrafesa of Alix of Bohemia. “Working closely with artisans inspires me to develop my own applications of their crafts, without drawing on imagery that might hold cultural significance for them. We share videos and images on our website and social media of our production processes, giving customers a glimpse into the artistry behind each piece and highlighting the people and processes that make it all possible.”

Aching For Authenticity

Isabel Marant is has been known for her bohemian designs with a cool French edge since she launched her eponymous brand in 1994, and while her aesthetic has navigated trends, the boho thread has persevered.

“I think this boho style came more from my love of craft,” Marant recently told Vogue. “I think what people can achieve with their hands is so beautiful, and this is something I’m very sensitive about: the weaving process, the knitting process, the embroidering process, the embellishment. I think this is something that fast fashion is weaker on, and this has pushed me more to develop more uniqueness in my designs. I think people are looking for authenticity.”

Authenticity and a connection to the natural world were prominent themes during New York Fashion Week earlier this month. Collina Strada’s show was held on a lawn, and one of the models even pushed a lawnmower, the theme being to “touch grass.”

Libertine devoted its show to preserving the park where it took place: the Elizabeth Street Garden in Soho, which is in danger of being closed. Models carried gardening tools: a watering can, a shovel, a wheelbarrow. For the finale, they carried signs that read “Save the Garden.” Attendees went home with flowers and packets of seeds.

The bohemian aesthetic promises to both transport us to far off places and also keep us grounded. So are we pining for a faraway beach or longing for a connection with the here and now?

Maybe it’s both—rather than escaping, maybe we want to infuse our everyday lives with more joy, adventure, and freedom. And sometimes a Liberty of London print on a hand-beaded maxi dress is giant step in that direction.