The collective desire to dress like a 2003-era 2003-era era is fueled by everything from PinkPantheress and Marine Serre. boho girlie?
When PinkPantheress When she arrives at the gig the Depop disc-belt is removed. She pulls the shackles from her waist, and then throws them to the ground as if she were a gladiator in the throes for battle. I’m not sure what PinkPantheress song requires that level of stagecraft but there is evidence of it happening here. Assisting the hips with an airy feeling of Eat, Pray, Love, The disc belt was an ode to a time when women felt the need to dress up as if they were opening a vintage shop on Portabello Road. It was all about shapeless peasant skirts and off-putting sandals and smoking roll ups.
Between 2003 and 2005, the disc belt experienced its peak. This was primarily due to Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, and the newfound eroticism of suede waistcoats and “hobo” bags. It didn’t cinch a silhouette so much as it flattened one, but it was knowingly sexy in a low-maintenance way. It failed to fulfill a functional purpose.Much like the thin scarves of the Frazzled English Woman. It was an ineffective scaffolding device for low-rise denim. When worn by a certain kind of person (posh, but keen to hide their privilege) the boho belt sent up a distress signal among west Londoners with the phrase “I’m just gonna pop down to Bikram yoga with my boyfriend who is in a band and wears neckerchiefs” telegraphed in skywriting.
I WANT TO GO THEREEE pic.twitter.com/MP43mtIWcM
— vanessa ☆ (@vanessaferrea) February 7, 2023
Bikram is a reference to the spiritual practices and whitewashing of the Global South. It is a time of great uncertainty. Vogue This was the first time I wrote about Goa wellness retreats. These were the kind of people who lined their interiors up with Buddha statues, Navajo print Ottomans, or fabric wall hangings. They were, in fact, the protoBali gap year elephant tattoo beach swizzles on Instagram type of wanderlusters. But this all surfaced long before the words “cultural appropriation” entered the mainstream, and when brought together in an aesthetic “boho” hodgepodge, the disc belt gestured to a “mood” – pseudo-spiritual, pseudo-folkish – rather than being a historically accurate portrayal of a certain demographic of people.
Fashion is a marketing strategy that sells the idea of something rather than the actual thing. The particular origins of a garment can become obscured. See Marine Serre’s AW23 collection, where she accessorised looks with belts strung together from plates. One writer claims that the disc belt is a descendant from the concho belt. This was the one worn by the Navajos, who adored the look of Southern Plain Indians in late 1800s. The belts became more extravagant and were popularised in the 1960s by Jim Morrison, who was the Doors’ first brand ambassador. Ralph Lauren, Chloé, Ferragamo, Sacai?, Louis Vuitton These were made into fashion accessories. Shakira was conscious that her fame came from belly-dancing in an appearance that was stolen from an oppressed people 200 years before. It’s unlikely.
It is a similar kind of time-flattening effect that’s happening to the Y2K aesthetic, which isn’t necessarily tethered to all the technological panic at the turn of the millennium – which is what the acronym stands for – but any and all of the looks that appeared in the early 2000s. The timewarp is made more uncomfortable by the fact most of these outfits are taken from red carpets or music videos. Fatigued with rhinestoned McBling costumes, there is a cultural appetite for what “regular” people were actually wearing during the aughts, hence all those people on TikTok People are finding boho belts in Salamon trainers, crocheted balaclavas, and boho belts on the cheap at thrift stores. It means the normie – and all her concho belts and rustic skirts – is becoming a belated protagonist in the permafrosted 00s revival.