Free Reign

Boho chic, the liberated and unfettered style statement of the aughts, is back with a floaty, festival-ready vengeance.

-  José Criales-Unzueta.

The year is 2004, and Sienna Miller is stomping the streets of Notting Hill in slouchy boots and a frilly white dress—it could be circa 1960 vintage, or something from Phoebe Philo’s spring 2004 collection for Chloé. A hundred or so miles to the west, Kate Moss is backstage at Glastonbury in tiny shorts, a waistcoat, and a studded vintage belt—a cool and loose style soon described as “new bohemian.” (Miller, in her Roberto Cavalli handkerchief dresses, Ossie Clark tops, and coin belts, co-headlines this bill.) Stateside, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are running around Manhattan wearing sandals and ruffled dresses under T-shirts and hoodies; on the West Coast, Jessica Alba walks the red carpet in a chiffon dress over jeans, with Kate Hudson captured by paparazzi in a breezy white iteration, a fringed suede handbag on her shoulder.

Boho chic, as this phenomenon came to be known, is a lot of things: It’s an undone, laid-back kind of cool, and while some would argue that it’s never exactly gone away (femalehelmed labels from Isabel Marant and Ulla Johnson to Zimmermann have been riffing on this vibe for years), two decades after Sienna and Kate and all the rest, it’s back in full force, led by Chloé designer Chemena Kamali.