200 Years of Boho
Bohemian style has, for over 200 years, been an exotic alternative to the accepted fashions of a given period. Generally associated with artists, writers, and intellectuals, bohemian culture incorporates Gypsy, and various ethic clothing styles, as well as historical costume.
Bohemian style consists of loose, colorful clothing and has appeared as boho chic, hippie style, and Aesthetic dress. With their long flowing hair and rich, though threadbare fabrics, bohemians stand out in a crowd representing a colorful counterculture based on creativity, poverty, and an indifference to social structures and traditions.
Bohemian style consists of loose, colorful clothing and has appeared as boho chic, hippie style, and Aesthetic dress. With their long flowing hair and rich, though threadbare fabrics, bohemians stand out in a crowd representing a colorful counterculture based on creativity, poverty, and an indifference to social structures and traditions.
Rosetti's Bocca Baciata - Bohemian Style
Gypsy Woman
Origin of the Bohemians
The Bohemians, as a counterculture, appeared in France after the French Revolution. Deprived of the former system of patronage, where wealthy clients supported the arts, artists were plunged into poverty. Many took up a nomadic life style, lived cheaply, and wore worn out and unfashionable or used clothing.
Formerly, an artist was seen as a skilled and talented crafts person. But the Romantic Movement of the late 18th century rejected the confines of bourgeois life and the former importance placed on reason, to embrace the imagination.
A new cult of personality emerged with the artist as hero and individual style expressed in the way one dressed. An artist became a special type of person, not merely a crafts person, but a kind of eccentric genius whose creativity was displayed in the way they lived and looked. The artist himself (or herself) was a piece of art.
People compared the new artistic types to wandering Gypsies and believed that Gypsies originated in Bohemia, an area of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. So, they came to refer to artists and intellectuals as Bohemians. (Gypsy was a European term for the Romany people, an ethnic group with Indian origins who had migrated north. The word Gypsy, derived from the word Egyptian, which many thought the actual home of the nomadic people who were often social outcasts that lived outside the mainstream.)
Formerly, an artist was seen as a skilled and talented crafts person. But the Romantic Movement of the late 18th century rejected the confines of bourgeois life and the former importance placed on reason, to embrace the imagination.
A new cult of personality emerged with the artist as hero and individual style expressed in the way one dressed. An artist became a special type of person, not merely a crafts person, but a kind of eccentric genius whose creativity was displayed in the way they lived and looked. The artist himself (or herself) was a piece of art.
People compared the new artistic types to wandering Gypsies and believed that Gypsies originated in Bohemia, an area of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. So, they came to refer to artists and intellectuals as Bohemians. (Gypsy was a European term for the Romany people, an ethnic group with Indian origins who had migrated north. The word Gypsy, derived from the word Egyptian, which many thought the actual home of the nomadic people who were often social outcasts that lived outside the mainstream.)
Bohemian Life Becomes Its Own Kind of Establishment
By the 1830's, the French Bohemian art crowd and the Romantics embraced medieval and oriental clothing styles. With their colorful fabrics, long flowing hair, and wide brimmed hats, the artistic culture did come to resemble Gypsies.
The novelist Henri Murger wrote tales about the people that he called bohemians, centering on a group of artists and intellectuals in threadbare coats, old shoes, and a general look of dishevelment. The stories inspired Puccinni's famous opera, La Boheme.
Bohemian style evolved into a cult of the individual, a person whose very appearance became a work of art with carefully planned outfits and accessories. The word bohemian suggested a sense of arcane enlightenment, sexual freedom, and poor personal hygiene.
Bohemian life rejects materialism, private property, and centers on creativity and communal living. Often associated with the use of drugs and alcohol, bohemians ignore social convention, centering their lives on art.
The novelist Henri Murger wrote tales about the people that he called bohemians, centering on a group of artists and intellectuals in threadbare coats, old shoes, and a general look of dishevelment. The stories inspired Puccinni's famous opera, La Boheme.
Bohemian style evolved into a cult of the individual, a person whose very appearance became a work of art with carefully planned outfits and accessories. The word bohemian suggested a sense of arcane enlightenment, sexual freedom, and poor personal hygiene.
Bohemian life rejects materialism, private property, and centers on creativity and communal living. Often associated with the use of drugs and alcohol, bohemians ignore social convention, centering their lives on art.
Sophie Gray - Painting by John Everett Millias 1857
Bohemian style 1857
Bohemians in the 19th Century - The Aesthetic Movement
In the 19th century, the Aesthetic Movement became a type of bohemian life style. The Aesthetics rebelled against the rigid social constraints of the Victorian era and embraced a style based on the clothing of the past, particularly medieval dress and oriental designs.
Beliving that the mass production of the Industrial Revolution was dehumanizing, the Aesthetics strove to encourage the old techniques of the Middle Ages with individually crafted goods. Clothing was loose and soft, using fabrics colored with organic dyes and decorated with hand embroidery. The Pre-Raphaelite artists of the day rejected corsets, crinolines, and the stiff bodices and restrictive clothing of Victorian fashion.
Beliving that the mass production of the Industrial Revolution was dehumanizing, the Aesthetics strove to encourage the old techniques of the Middle Ages with individually crafted goods. Clothing was loose and soft, using fabrics colored with organic dyes and decorated with hand embroidery. The Pre-Raphaelite artists of the day rejected corsets, crinolines, and the stiff bodices and restrictive clothing of Victorian fashion.
The Bohemian - A Painting by Renior
Hippie Style or Boho chic
Source: http://Don Hankins@flickr
Fashion Elements of Bohemian Style
Bohemian style, now referred to as boho chic, has come down through history, reappearing as beatnik style and in the hippie culture of the 1960's. For 200 years, bohemian style has consisted of several fashion elements.
- Loose, flowing clothing made of natural fabrics
- Less restrictive garments worn without corsets, bras or other restrictive elements
- Loose, flowing hair
- Colorful scarves worn at the neck, on the head, or instead of a belt
- Peasant style clothing including tunics, loose trousers, boots, and sandals
- Used or worn clothing
- Oriental elements including robes, kimonos, an the ethnic designs of Persia, India, Turkey, and China
- Mixing historical elements of medieval clothing with ethnic styles
- Layering
- Matching of garments in a nontraditional manner, such as mixing prints, or unusual color combinations
- Multi strands of beads, several bangle bracelets, and the wearing of unusual, hand crafted, or unmatched jewelry
- Large dangle or large hoop earrings
- Broad brimmed hats
- Patched clothing
- Paisley, flowered fabrics, ruffles, lace edged sleeves
- A general disregard for tidiness and uniformity of dress
- A look of contrived dishevelment
Hippie or Bohemian Style
Hippie at the Rainbow Gathering
Source: http://Alexkon@Flilckr
Jane Morris
Dorelia McNeill
Bohemian Icons
The Rainbow Gathering is an annual meeting of like minded individuals with a bohemian bent that reject capitalism and materialism and embrace utopian ideals, the creative life, environmentalism, and diversity.
The Hippie Movement of the late 1960's incorporated bohemian ideals. Centered on creativity of life and dress, hippie style included elements of historic costume, ethnic dress, and a rejection of mainstream life. To the right, in a clip from the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967, Country Joe and the Fish perform to a crowd dressed in classic hippie style.
Greenwich Village, New York or The Village was a gathering place for impoverished artists and writers in the 20th century, a haven for the creative communtiy as a distinctive minority group.
The Left Bank In the early 20th century, the Montparnasse area of Paris France was a hub of creativity that attracted artists, writers, and intellectuals. Here, people like Marc Chagall, Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse, and others were able to live cheaply, meeting in bistros and restaurants to share ideas.
La Boheme and the Musical Rent - The musical Rent is based on Puccini's opera La Boheme. The story revolves around a group of artists living the bohemian life and their struggles with poverty and disease.
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle's first short story featuring Sherlock Holmes included Doctor Watson's description of the famous fictional detective's 'bohemian soul.'
Paul Poiret - The early 20th century fashion designer reworked a variety of ethnic designs for Western fashion. His use of elements of Russian peasant costume, Middle Eastern, oriental, and historic dress introduced bohemian concepts int high fashion that eventually bled into mainstream fashion.
William and Jane Morris - William Morris was a designer who created alternative textiles for clothing and interior design, known for his involevment in liberal socialism, historic preservation and known as an early environmentalist. He also designed clothes for his wife, Jane Morris, a model who became an icon of the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements in her loose, medieval style dresses and abundant long hair.
Dorelia McNeill was a model for the artists Gwen and Augustus John in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Augustus and Dorelia lived a gypsy life in a caravan while he painted her in long, loose skirts and scarves as they lived in a personal bohemian utopia.
The Hippie Movement of the late 1960's incorporated bohemian ideals. Centered on creativity of life and dress, hippie style included elements of historic costume, ethnic dress, and a rejection of mainstream life. To the right, in a clip from the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967, Country Joe and the Fish perform to a crowd dressed in classic hippie style.
Greenwich Village, New York or The Village was a gathering place for impoverished artists and writers in the 20th century, a haven for the creative communtiy as a distinctive minority group.
The Left Bank In the early 20th century, the Montparnasse area of Paris France was a hub of creativity that attracted artists, writers, and intellectuals. Here, people like Marc Chagall, Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse, and others were able to live cheaply, meeting in bistros and restaurants to share ideas.
La Boheme and the Musical Rent - The musical Rent is based on Puccini's opera La Boheme. The story revolves around a group of artists living the bohemian life and their struggles with poverty and disease.
Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle's first short story featuring Sherlock Holmes included Doctor Watson's description of the famous fictional detective's 'bohemian soul.'
Paul Poiret - The early 20th century fashion designer reworked a variety of ethnic designs for Western fashion. His use of elements of Russian peasant costume, Middle Eastern, oriental, and historic dress introduced bohemian concepts int high fashion that eventually bled into mainstream fashion.
William and Jane Morris - William Morris was a designer who created alternative textiles for clothing and interior design, known for his involevment in liberal socialism, historic preservation and known as an early environmentalist. He also designed clothes for his wife, Jane Morris, a model who became an icon of the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements in her loose, medieval style dresses and abundant long hair.
Dorelia McNeill was a model for the artists Gwen and Augustus John in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Augustus and Dorelia lived a gypsy life in a caravan while he painted her in long, loose skirts and scarves as they lived in a personal bohemian utopia.
Modern Bohemian or Hippie Style
Source: Photograph by Zours
20th Century Bohemian Style
Basically unchanged for many years, bohemian style came to be associated with young people hoping to distance themselves from the materialistic culture of past generations. Bohemian style gave birth to more modern counter culture styles. Beatniks, with their black turtle necks and striped shirts took on a more austere tone of dress. Hippie style introduced a note of childhood into the mix by incorporating cowboy and Indian styles as well as short, girlish skirts.
But as mass media embraced bohemianism, one wonders if the term is still viable. When a coutner culture goes mainstream, the style can no longer be viewed as alternative.
When discount stores sell peasant skirts, and fashion magazines offer expensive designer made bohemian style garments, the nature of the bohemian life has become a cultural norm, no longer unique and specific to a particular group.
Though fashionistas embrace boho chic, the life itself - the yearning for individual freedom, the rejection of modern materialistic concepts, the dream of utopian ideals, and production of hand crafted goods remains a powerful alternative to mainstream culture.
But as mass media embraced bohemianism, one wonders if the term is still viable. When a coutner culture goes mainstream, the style can no longer be viewed as alternative.
When discount stores sell peasant skirts, and fashion magazines offer expensive designer made bohemian style garments, the nature of the bohemian life has become a cultural norm, no longer unique and specific to a particular group.
Though fashionistas embrace boho chic, the life itself - the yearning for individual freedom, the rejection of modern materialistic concepts, the dream of utopian ideals, and production of hand crafted goods remains a powerful alternative to mainstream culture.
Boho Roots - Hungarian Gypsies Early 20th Century
The Aesthetic Movement
- Fashions of The Aesthetic Movement - A Cult of Beauty and Victorian Counterculture
The Aesthetic Movement was a counterculture of artists, writers, and designers in Victorian England who opposed the dehumanization of the Industrial Age. Aesthetic fashion stood against the stiffness of corsets and Victorian materialism, favoring a n
Victorian Fashion
- Women and Fashions of the Victorian Era: From Hoop Skirts to Bustles - 1837 - 1900
Victorian fashions reflect the clothing worn between 1837 - 1900 during the reign of Queen Victoria. Despite the prim and proper feminine ideal, Victorian clothing includes outrageous styles like hoop skirts and bustles.
Medieval Clothing
- Fashion History of the High and Late Middle Ages - Medieval Clothing
The evolution of fashion in the high and late Middle ages due to the cultural influences of Asia and improved technology in the making of European medieval clothing. Attractive styles became more available to new middle class, and clothing styles cha
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