I am surprised that Kaia Gerber did not wear a long, beaded necklace while browsing for root vegetables and spiritual sustenance at the farmers market last weekend, because just about every other element of her outfit hung on the architecture of “boho chic”. The delicate patchwork skirt, the velveteen Mary-Jane flats, the lace-trimmed button-up… it was as though Gerber was starring in a feel-good movie about a disenfranchised careerist who journeys across the world in an attempt to “reconnect”.
That is, of course, the plot of Eat, Pray, Love: a 2006 memoir that happened to be published at the same time as Sienna Miller was wearing coin belts and peasant skirts and rough-hewn turquoise rings. The collective urge to go “off-grid” and start dressing like an ascendant yoga teacher was a cornerstone of mid-Aughts pop culture, and it now seems to be reentering the zeitgeist. See: EmRata and her obsidian stone necklace, which she latticed around her neck on a bit of upcycled suede cord.
Jennifer Lawrence wore a similar item earlier this summer: an elliptical Elsa Peretti necklace made from Japanese hardwood. And there were also sun-beamed arm cuffs in Diesel’s spring 2024 collection, multi-strand necklaces at Chanel, Ralph Lauren and Burberry, and toe rings at Rabanne and Miu Miu (if the multicoloured plasters count, that is). All of this speaks to a resurgent interest in the bohemian lifestyle, albeit one driven by social media and an algorithmic nostalgia.